The residential demand for electricity in New England,

The residential demand for electricity, studied on the national level for many years, is here investigated on the regional level. A survey of the literature is first presented outlining past econometric work in the field of electrical energy demand. An econometric model is then presented using a 1970 cross-section of sixty-seven New England electric utilities and their service areas as the data base. The special nature of the market for electricity, characterized by decreasing block rate structures, requires that both a supply price equation and a demand equation be estimated. A suitable technique, two-stage least squares, is used to obtain consistent coefficients, and elasticities of demand are obtained.