 Information policies and biased cost perceptions - The case of Swedish residential energy consumptionThomas Broberg and Andrius Kazukauskas Energy Policy, 2021, vol. 149, issue C Abstract: Households typically receive utility bills where all electricity use during a fixed period is lumped together. The lack of direct feedback in the form of marginal costs of using specific electric appliances potentially leads to mistakes in households' decision-making because of biased cost perceptions. In this paper, we test the commonly held notion that lack of relevant energy-related knowledge results in cost underestimation of using electric appliances that may lead to over-consumption of energy. Contrary to this notion, our results show that less knowledgeable energy consumers tend to have higher cost perceptions than others. This finding implies that less knowledgeable energy consumers may consume too little of energy. We also find that a substantial share of the sampled households, in particular less knowledgeable energy consumers, are less willing to receive relevant cost-free information about their energy use and costs. This finding suggests that poor energy-related knowledge may not only be a matter of high information search and processing costs, but also a matter of consumers’ limited attention capacity. Keywords: Efficiency; Energy policy; Knowledge; Information; Perceptions; Energy literacy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:149:y:2021:i:c:s0301421520308065 DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.112095 Access Statistics for this article Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.