Weather and the Demand for Space Heat

W HILE we can as yet do little to change the weather, we can nevertheless use weather variations to explain an occasional economic phenomenon. Considerable work has already been done on the connection between weather and the use of specific fuels in specific areas.' Recently, J. R. N. Stone and D. A. Rowe have related quarterly averages of temperature, rainfall, and sunshine to English consumption of fuel and light, entertainment, and beer.2 The present paper describes how year-to-year variations in winter temperatures seem to affect United States demand for all space-heating fuel combined. These temperature changes, it turns out, are of less importance than personal income in explaining the long-run trend in space-heat demand, though they are of considerable significance in explaining year-to-year variations. In general the demand equation obtained from I935-40, I946-Si data fits actual consumption well; the difference between actual and calculated consumption for I942-45 gives some notion of the relative unimportance of wartime fuel scarcity in the United States; and the predicted values for the years I952-59 differ from the actual values by an average of only i.6 per cent.