Energy poverty is a distinct form of poverty that the International Energy Agency estimates could affect as many as one billion people globally. In high-income countries, it is primarily an affordability issue resulting from some combination of having low-income, high expenditure on energy and living in energy inefficient buildings. Rates of energy poverty are typically higher in low-income neighborhoods, in which local area crime rates are also higher. Here, we match longitudinal data at the household level with local area crime rates to estimate the causal effect of local area crime on the probability of being in energy poverty. Our baseline estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in crime rate causes a 4–5% increase in the likelihood of being in energy poverty. Our instrumental variable estimates are considerably higher, suggesting these are lower bound estimates. We find that social capital, perceived safety and physical activity are channels through which crime influences energy poverty and that being internal on Locus of Control dampens the effect of crime on energy poverty.

能源贫困是一种独特的贫困形式，国际能源署估计它可能影响全球多达 10 亿人。在高收入国家，这主要是由于低收入、高能源支出和生活在能源效率低下的建筑中的某种结合而导致的负担能力问题。低收入社区的能源贫困率通常较高，当地犯罪率也较高。在这里，我们将家庭层面的纵向数据与当地犯罪率相匹配，以估计当地犯罪对能源贫困概率的因果影响。我们的基线估计表明，犯罪率的标准差增加会导致能源贫困的可能性增加 4-5%。我们的工具变量估计要高得多，表明这些是下限估计。我们发现，社会资本、感知安全和身体活动是犯罪影响能源贫困的渠道，并且处于内部控制点会抑制犯罪对能源贫困的影响。