About

Roger worked at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment from April 2013 until July 2022. He led the research on drawing lessons from economic history for green growth.

Check details of research currently in progress by Roger on ‘Net Domestic Consumer Surplus (1700-2017): A New Indicator of Consumer Welfare’

Background

Roger has been investigating the long run relationship between economic development, energy use and its environmental impacts over the last twenty years, introducing economic history to the analysis of energy issues.

An article, co-authored with Steve Broadberry, in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2015 presents evidence on very long GDP per capita in a number of European countries. It rejects the argument that these economies were stagnant prior to the Industrial Revolution. Instead, the evidence demonstrates the existence of numerous periods of economic growth before the nineteenth century – unsustained, but raising GDP per capita. It also shows that many of these economies experienced substantial economic decline. Thus, rather than being stagnant, pre-nineteenth century European economies experienced a great deal of change, and implies that recent theories of long run economic growth dependent on the concept of ‘stagnation followed by take-off’ need to be revised.

Roger’s 2018 article in The Energy Journal estimated the net benefits to consumers from energy transitions. The results confirm the hypothesis that the consumer surplus followed an inverse-U shape over time. There were dramatic increases in consumer surplus, which reflected the transformations in economies, societies and lifestyles that mobility and illumination provided in the nineteenth and first-half of the twentieth century. The net benefits of these technologies also appear to have been declining during the second half of the twentieth century, suggesting that future energy technologies and transitions may not benefit consumers as much as they did in the past.

His 2014 article estimated trends in income and price elasticities of demand for heating, transport and lighting over the last two hundred years, showing an inverse-U trend for all income elasticities, as the economy developed. An understanding of these trends is vital for improving forecasts of energy use and carbon dioxide emissions.

income_price_elasticity

In 1996, he was awarded the BIEE/Financial Times Andrew Holmes Memorial Award for his research into the impact of liberalisation on the green electricity market. In 2006, his joint article with Peter Pearson on very long run trends in lighting prices and consumption was chosen for the annual Campbell Watkins Award for Best Paper in The Energy Journal. In 2010, his book, ‘Heat, Power and Light: revolutions in energy services’ (Fouquet 2008), was selected by Choice Magazine as one of its Outstanding Academic Titles.

He is the editor of the Handbook on Energy and Climate Change, the Handbook on Green Growth, and The Economics of Renewable Energy. He is also the editor of the energy economics section of New Economic Papers, and an associate editor of the Journal of Energy History and the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics.

Roger received his BA (Economics with Mathematics) in 1990 from the University of Sussex, his MSc (Energy Economics) in 1991, and his PhD in Economics in 1997, both from the University of Surrey.

Research in progress

Check details of research currently in progress by Roger on ‘Net Domestic Consumer Surplus (1700-2017): A New Indicator of Consumer Welfare’

Research interests

  • The long-run relationships between economic development, energy use and environmental impacts.

Prospective PhD students

Roger welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD students with an economics/economic history background and interests in long run or historical research into economic development, energy, and/or the environment.
Visit the ‘Study with us’ page for further information on applying to be a PhD student with us.

More information

Roger Fouquet CV

Research

Research - 2023

Research - 2022

Research - 2021

Research - 2020

Research - 2019

Research - 2018

Research - 2017

Research - 2016

Research - 2015

Research - 2014

Research - 2013

Research - 2012

Research - 2011

Research - 2009

Research - 2008

Research - 2006

Research - 2003

Research - 2001

Research - 1998

Research - 1997

Data

Data - 2023

Data - 2022

Data - 2015

Data - 2014

Data - 2011

Books

Books - 2019

Books - 2018

Books - 2013

Books - 2008

Events

Events - 2016

Events - 2015

Events - 2014

News

News - 2016

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