Education quality and energy poverty: Evidence from Chinese elite universities

Using China’s higher education expansion as a natural experiment, we examine the causal effect of education quality on the proclivity to be in energy poverty. We find that education causes a reduction in the likelihood of being in energy poverty and that the point estimates are largest for those that attended elite universities, followed by those who attended non-elite universities and colleges. This finding is robust to alternative ways of measuring energy poverty, as well as a series of sensitivity checks. We find that cognitive ability, employment status, generalised trust and income mediate the relationship between education and energy poverty.