Helena Meier
Health Satisfaction and Energy Spending
EPRG 1028 | Non-Technical Summary | PDF
Abstract: This study explores the link between energy spending and health satisfaction. We aim to show that energy spending is a driver of health satisfaction and therefore of the overall quality of life of individuals. This has important implications for policy makers especially in the context of fuel poor and low-income households. The analysis tests the hypothesis that health satisfaction decreases with increasing energy spending per room. Households with high energy spending tend to live in inefficiently insulated homes that are not heated adequately. We use a British panel household survey dataset with more than 60,000 observations covering the period 1997 to 2007. We apply a fixed effects econometric model which enables us to take unobservable heterogeneity between households into account.
Keywords: Health satisfaction, energy spending