Split Incentives in Residential Energy Consumption

Kenneth Gillingham, Matthew Harding, and David Rapson
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Kenneth Thomas Gillingham, David S. Rapson and Matthew C. Harding ()

The Energy Journal, 2012, vol. Volume 33, issue Number 2

Abstract: We explore two split incentive issues between owners and occupants of residential dwellings: heating or cooling incentives are suboptimal when the occupant does not pay for energy use, and insulation incentives are suboptimal when the occupant cannot perfectly observe the owner's insulation choice. We empirically quantify the effect of these two market failures and how they affect behavior in California. We find that those who pay are 16 percent more likely to change the heating setting at night and owner-occupied dwellings are 20 percent more likely to be insulated in the attic or ceiling. However, in contrast to common conception, we find that only small overall energy savings may be possible from policy interventions aimed at correcting the split incentive issues.

JEL-codes: F0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (143)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejarticle.aspx?id=2476 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to IAEE members and subscribers.

Related works:
Journal Article: Split Incentives in Residential Energy Consumption (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aen:journl:33-2-03

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejsearch.aspx

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Energy Journal from International Association for Energy Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by David Williams ().