La demanda industrial de energía

Abstract

This papers analyses some important economic features of the industrial demand for energy in Argentina. The model employs a translog cost function which does not impose arbitrary a priori restrictions on the underlying structure of production, uses aggregate time series data, and a two stage optimization procedure is applied. In the first stage, the derived demand for energy commponents assuming usual optimization behavior is estimated. Then, an aggregate price index of the separable energy factors is obtained and employed for the estimation of the derived demand of primary inputs in the second stage. In both cases, statistical tests show that aggregation functions are well behaved. The results are then applied to the analysis of the demand for energy and primary inputs obtaining price elasticities, returns to scale, and average costs and energy product elasticities. Finally, combining the estimated parameters of the model with inputs prices and industrial production forecasts, energy consumption is projected.