Working Paper: NBER ID: w21912
Authors: Matthew E. Kahn; Nils Kok; Peng Liu
Abstract: California’s per-capita electricity consumption is 50 percent lower than national per-capita consumption. Mild climate, deindustrialization, and its demographics explain part of this differential. California energy efficiency policy is often claimed to be another key factor. A challenge in judging this claim is the heterogeneity of the real estate capital stock. Residential homes differ along a large number of physical attributes. We access a proprietary dataset from a large hotel chain that allows us to evaluate the environmental performance of comparable commercial real estate across the United States. Controlling for climate conditions and geographic location, we document that California’s commercial real estate stock is the most energy efficient at a point in time but this differential is quantitatively small. However, over the years 2007 to 2013, California’s hotels achieved much greater energy efficiency progress than hotels in other states.
Keywords: Energy Efficiency; Commercial Real Estate; California; Electricity Consumption
JEL Codes: Q41; Q48
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| climate conditions and occupancy rates (R21) | California hotels' electricity consumption (L97) |
| California's commercial real estate policies (R33) | California hotels' energy efficiency progress (Q48) |
| California hotels' energy efficiency progress (Q48) | California hotels' electricity consumption (L97) |
| California's regulatory environment (K23) | California hotels' electricity consumption (L97) |