New RILSA policy paper: Household-specific Energy Expenditure and Inflation in the Czech Republic
By means of policy papers, experts from RILSA/VÚPSV provide a thorough insight into selected social policy topics and suggest recommendations for decision-makers in the respective areas.
RILSA’s latest policy paper – as with the previous two policy papers – has been published in English. The author is economist Filip Mandys who works both for RILSA as a researcher and the European Investment Fund, based in Luxembourg.
Via the new policy paper, RILSA responds to a situation in which the professional literature currently lacks any information on the impacts of energy inflation on different consumer groups. Filip Mandys analyses energy inflation and household energy expenditure employing the latest available data and the application of the weighted least squares (WLS) and weighted average methods. The results indicate that the energy expenditure share of total expenditure is most affected by the number of children and pensioners in the household, i.e. increases of 6.6% and 24%, respectively for each additional child or pensioner. This result was found to apply particularly to gas and automobile fuel expenditure.
The results of the research also revealed that the average Czech household faced an energy price increase of 45.2% between June 2021 and 2022. In absolute terms, the average household suffered from an annual loss of CZK 10,000 per inhabitant, with the most affected groups being pensioners, inhabitants of small municipalities, homeowners and low-income households.
The lowest income households lost CZK 21,000, which is comparatively significantly more than the CZK 26,000 lost by high income households.
RILSA’s latest policy paper also provides recommendations for policymakers, including the provision of group-specific financial support and the introduction of legislative incentives to promote energy-saving behaviour.
RILSA Policy Papers, no. 4/2022