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Understanding the behaviour of the demand for electricity in face of price variations and income variations is relevant for the formulation and evaluation of public policy and business decisions. Empirical studies seek to measure this sensitivity in different regions of the globe. These studies usually have different estimation methods, data structure, period, and sample interval. Authors as Espey & Espey (2004), Galindo et al (2015), Horáček (2014), Labandeira et al (2016), and Zhu et al (2018) used the method of meta-analysis ("an analysis of analyses")3 to generate concise estimates of the price-elasticity and income-elasticity of electricity demand for different groups of countries. The meta-analysis method allows quantitatively summarizing empirical evidence on the same topic in a broader analysis of individual analyzes using statistical tools (Borenstein et al., 2010, 2011; Cooper et al., 2009; Hedges & Olkin, 1985). About the heterogeneity between studies, Labandeira et al (2016), Zhu et al (2018), and Galindo et al (2015) carry out investigations of the elements that can determine this variability through the meta-regression technique. In this sense, these studies verify whether the existing heterogeneities between studies can be explained by one or more covariates.

We compiled 252 articles, of which 50 of them were selected to compose the meta-analysis sample for meeting the established inclusion criteria. The estimates contained in these articles present data for the period from 1970 to 2020. Elasticities in logarithms (effect magnitude index) and standard error (estimation precision index) were used. The set of estimates extracted from the studies were separated into 4 samples: 138 observations of short-run price elasticities, 33 observations of long-run price elasticities, 124 observations of short-run income elasticities, and 28 observations of long-run income elasticities deadline. We find the short-run and long-run price elasticities for Latin America and the Caribbean to be -0.36 and -0.42, respectively; and the short- and long-term income elasticities are 0.22 and 0.63, respectively. Comparing the results with the literature, we have that the estimates are close to those found by Espey and Espey (2004), Labandeira (2017), Horáček (2014), and Galindo et al (2016). We propose two additional analyzes as a robustness strategy: the first consists of estimating the results considering only a sample with articles that were peer-reviewed and published in scientific journals, and the second strategy was to estimate the results only for Brazil as it is the country with a higher proportion of research in the area. It is important to emphasize that this work innovates in the energy-saving literature in several ways. First, this is the first article that, through a systematic collection and research procedure, seeks to find an accurate value of the price-elasticity and income-elasticity of demand for residential electricity for Latin America and the Caribbean through targeting techniques. In addition, this work seeks to investigate possible sources of heterogeneity among the results on this topic using moderating variables and meta-regression techniques (Baker et al., 2009; Galindo et al., 2015; Thompson & Sharp, 1999). Therefore, the results found are important both for defining public policies for residential electricity and managers of companies linked to the energy generation, transmission, and distribution sectors, as they have new information on the characteristics of demanders in the region and for further empirical research, as long as the results present possible tendencies depending on estimation techniques, type of data and period of sample.

Defesa de mestrado e publicação em revista científica com fator de impacto.