• Energy Research

The aim of this paper is to assess the distributional impact of the 2021-23 price increase on Italian household expenditure and energy poverty. Using the microsimulation model developed by the Italian Parliamentary Budget Office, the analysis provides a comprehensive assessment of the uneven impact of inflation across the population and measures how mitigation policies have compensated for this impact. In particular, we focus on vulnerable households to examine whether energy poverty has been affected by the rise in energy prices and to what extent policies have succeeded in protecting these families. Our main findings show that in 2022, mitigation policies have stabilised the impact of inflation by compensating households for almost half of the effect of the price shock on their expenditure. Although not particularly well targeted at energy-poor households, the mitigation policies have protected households from a worsening of their energy vulnerability. However, the reduction of support measures adopted in 2023 is expected to increase the area of vulnerability, including households that are particularly sensitive to high energy costs. Finally, the behavioural response of households was also considered by estimating price elasticities of energy demand and measuring their impact on the simulated scenarios using a sensitivity approach.

In this paper, we provide an in-depth analysis of factors determining energy import demand of EU countries. We suggest a novel approach to study the role of renewable versus non renewable energy sources in shaping the demand for energy imports. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the EU energy market structure using country-by-country I–O tables to show the rate of interdependency between EU member states in terms of renewable and non renewable energy flows. Second, we investigate on the role of renewable energy sources in reducing energy dependency in EU countries. The econometric analysis uses data from 26 EU countries observed between 2007 and 2016 available from the Eurostat energy statistics database. The descriptive analysis of I–O electricity tables shows some degree of heterogeneity between countries in terms of energy in- and out-flows. Such heterogeneous market structure suggests the use of panel models in the econometric analysis. Moreover, a lasso regression method has been employed for variables selection to avoid the collinearity. The results show that benefits may arise from replacing energy imports with domestic energy production and from reducing energy dependency rate. Moreover, if import substitution occurs with domestic renewable energy sources additional positive effects are produced in terms of either energy dependency, energy security and sustainable development.