Engel curves for residential electricity

In the past twenty years there have been numerous studies conducted on the topic of electricity demand. This coincides with the rapid development of electricity requirements, both residential and non-residential. This dissertation focuses on the residential demand for electricity in Tasmania. The accent of this work is on measuring the income elasticity of demand for electricity. The applications to which this knowledge could be put are discussed in Chapter One. The main envisaged application, as is indicated there, is in the use of an income variable in forecasting residential demand for electricity. Chapter Two presents a review of related studies in which it is found that investigations in this field do not as a rule develop models of electricity demand in a rigorous manner from a utility maximization framework.