Historical evidence for energy efficiency rebound in 30 US sectors and a toolkit for rebound analysts

This article presents a detailed econometric analysis of historical energy efficiency rebound magnitudes in the US economy by sector and in aggregate. The results strongly suggest that energy consumption forecasts that ignore rebound effects will systematically and significantly understate energy consumption. Accompanying this article is a toolkit that allows any analyst to conduct a comparable analysis for any country, or sector, for which the data are available.

► Measured historical rebound across 30 US sectors shows rebound magnitudes were significant.
► Individual sectors can show either increasing or decreasing trends in rebound magnitudes.
► Technology gains for non-energy factors substantially increase energy consumption.
► The results show that energy consumption forecasts must explicitly consider rebound phenomena.
► The analysis uses measured parameters of Translog unit cost functions and duality theory.