The Electricity Consumption Inequality Of China

Although a large number of literature studies inequality in China from the perspective of income,consumption or energy based on household survey data,it can not avoid the fact that there are few high-income samples,the data is underreported or concealed.In order to overcome the limitations of using household survey data,this thesis uses household electricity meter reading data to measure inequality.According to the distribution of annual and monthly electricity consumption of urban,rural and urban village households,this thesis uses Gini coefficient(Lorentz curve),Theil index and Atkinson index to measure the inequality of electricity consumption from two aspects of physical consumption and electricity consumption expenditure,and comprehensively shows the current situation of the inequality of electricity consumption of urban,rural and urban village households.And it also explores the influence of temperature on the power consumption inequality,and analyzes the changes of power consumption inequality under different price thresholds and different accounting methods,which has a very important reference significance for China’s energy policy.The results show that the Gini coefficient of electricity consumption measured by physical consumption and electricity consumption expenditure is 0.6171 and 0.6683,respectively,which is significantly higher than that measured by other household survey data.After the introduction of step tariff,in rural and urban areas,the overall trend table shows that households with more electricity consumption pay more,while households with less electricity consumption pay less.Under the current step tariff policy,the urban village residents who still adopt the combined tariff do not enjoy the benefits brought by the step tariff policy,and under the actual combined tariff,the urban village households whose power consumption level is lower than that of urban households need to pay for the electricity at a price 68% higher than the top-grade tariff.At the same time,the empirical results show that the increase of temperature has a great impact on the power consumption of urban village households.With the average temperature rising year by year in summer,the power consumption inequality of urban village households,which are in the low and middle income level,will become more and more serious.Through the decomposition of Theil index on power consumption inequality,the results show that the gap between groups of rural,urban and urban village households(the power consumption gap between high and low-income groups)contributes the most to the overall power consumption inequality of households,reaching 35.03%.The monthly fluctuation of Theil index shows that high temperature will bring greater power consumption gap between urban and rural areas,and the difference between groups will bring overall inequality in summer months,the contribution is 33.93% in September,and 34.53% in November,which shows that in summer,the gap between rural & urban village and urban power consumption was large.Regardless of the value of ε,the household type with the largest Atkinson index in the whole year is the rural household(0.2799-0.9773),that is,the rural household has the most unequal power consumption,followed by theurban village household(0.2628-0.9629),and the smallest is the urban household(0.1809-0.8924).With the increase of inequality aversion,the Atkinson index of power consumption of the three types of households increases.On the whole,when ε= 2,the Atkinson index of three types of household electricity consumption is higher in summer months than in non summer months,which means that the degree of power consumption inequality of three types of household in summer is more serious than in non summer months.The empirical results also show that with the increase of summer temperature,the power consumption inequality faced by low-income families in urban and rural areas will be more severe.Scenario analysis shows that reducing the unit price of middle and low level,increasing the unit price of high level and expanding the difference between the unit price of middle and low level and the unit price of high level can significantly mitigate the inequality of power consumption;on the basis of the existing monthly calculation of power consumption,adding the annual accounting mechanism in order to reduce the summer power consumption expenditure of low power consumers can also alleviate the inequality.