Air Conditioning and Inequality
The study uses household-level data from 16 countries to characterize the relationship between climate, income and residential air conditioning
Abstract
The study uses household-level microdata from 16 countries to characterize empirically the relationship between climate, income, and residential air conditioning. The study shows that both current and future air conditioner usage is concentrated among high-income households. Not only do richer countries have much more air conditioning than poorer countries, but within countries adoption is highly concentrated among high-income households.
This research is part of the Energy and Economic Growth Applied Research Programme.
Citation
Lucas Davis, Paul Gertler, Stephen Jarvis, Catherine Wolfram, Air conditioning and global inequality, Global Environmental Change, Volume 69, 2021,