Improving Energy Intensity in the Visegrad area

This thesis evaluates the energy intensity of the Visegrad group member economies. In order to identify the most problematic areas of these economies, it critically evaluates the to date used methods of measuring energy intensity in the context of the production-to-output model. Concluding that the possibility to substitute energy use by labour in production distorts the results of traditional methods, four new indicators for measuring energy intensity and one auxiliary indicator are derived and introduced in this thesis. After being tested on a diverse portfolio of countries, they are used for the assessment of energy intensity of the V4 countries. Subsequently, economic macro-sectors whose energy intensity exceeds the EU sectoral mean value the most are identified.