Do environmental benefits matter? A choice experiment among house owners in Germany

Martin Achtnicht

No 10-094, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: Residential buildings strongly contribute to global CO2 emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating, particularly in industrialised countries. Within the EU, decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy, as its emissions are not covered by the EU ETS. We conducted a choice experiment concerning energy retrofits for existing houses in Germany. In the experiment, the approximately 400 sampled house owners could either choose a modern heating system or an improved thermal insulation for their home. We used standard and mixed logit specifications to analyse the choice data. We found environmental benefits to have a significant impact on choices of heating systems. However, they played no role in terms of insulation choices. Based on the estimated mixed logit model, we further obtained WTP measures for CO2 savings.

Keywords: Choice experiment; CO2 emissions; Energy efficiency; Energy saving; Mixed logit; Residential buildings; Willingness to pay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 D12 Q40 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-eur, nep-exp and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Working Paper: Do Environmental Benefits Matter? A Choice Experiment Among House Owners in Germany (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10094

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