Abstract: | The basic indications from several studies, that firms in Namibia may have been swifter in adapting their energy use to changing prices and changing technology availability than their counterparts in many other developing countries, were sufficiently unexpected for Namibian energy use to warrant further examination. Because the lack of detailed economic data for longer periods of time makes it difficult to carry out a traditional econometric time-series analysis to study the variables determining energy use patterns at the sectoral level, the present study uses the input-output methodology known as structural decomposition analysis. The main sources of data were an input-output table for 1980 and a pilot social accounting matrix for 1998. Primary energy use in Namibia increased between 1980 and 1998, just as in most developing countries, but the results of the present analysis show that this was almost entirely due to increased energy use by households. Aggregate commercial use of energy barely increased at all in the period studied, and it appears that agents have been able to switch, not only to more energy efficient technologies, but also to technologies which use different energy sources altogether. App., bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |