This title appears in the Scientific Report :
2014
Analysing Gordon’s trade-off in the German energy sector
Analysing Gordon’s trade-off in the German energy sector
The aim of our paper is to make a contribution to the current science and policy discourse on the social design of the German energy transition (Energiewende). For this analysis, we use the Atkinson index as an inequality measure to analyse the distribution of income, consumption and energy expenses...
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Personal Name(s): | Schlör, Holger (Corresponding Author) |
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Fischer, W. / Hake, J-Fr. | |
Contributing Institute: |
Systemforschung und Technologische Entwicklung; IEK-STE |
Published in: | 2014 |
Imprint: |
2014
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Conference: | 2nd International Congress on Energy Efficiency and Energy Related Materials (ENEFM)”, Oludeniz, Fethiye (Turkey), 2014-10-16 - 2014-10-19 |
Document Type: |
Conference Presentation |
Research Program: |
Transformation of Energy Systems |
Publikationsportal JuSER |
The aim of our paper is to make a contribution to the current science and policy discourse on the social design of the German energy transition (Energiewende). For this analysis, we use the Atkinson index as an inequality measure to analyse the distribution of income, consumption and energy expenses in Germany and identify Gordon’s trade-off. Gordon refers to a basic problem of democratic societies namely that the constitutional guarantee of political equality of all citizens is contrasted with economic inequality, measured in income and consumption, as a result of market forces. Gordon characterized this economically as a trade-off between equality and efficiency, irrespective of the affluence of society.The Atkinson index can contribute to scrutinizing and illustrating the trade-off with respect to the social discourse about inequality in the German Energiewende, since the index’s epsilon parameter reveals the weighting of the inequality or equality of society. The epsilon parameter allows us to assess the distribution from the perspective of the whole of society or of social groups. In the first part of our analysis we considered the real distribution of income, consumption, energy expenses, and CO2 emissions. In the second part we analysed the normative distribution of energy expenses and the CO2 emission. The results of applying the Atkinson index reveal the societal meaning of Gordon’s trade-off for the German energy sector in the context of the German energy transition process (Energiewende). |