Energy saving in Italy in the late 1990s: Which role for non-monetary motivations?

Damiano Fiorillo () and Alessandro Sapio

Ecological Economics, 2019, vol. 165, issue C, -

Abstract: The paper studies the relationship between energy saving behaviour, monetary drivers and non-monetary motivations in Italy, in a period, the end of the 1990s, when the energy industry was not yet liberalized, there were no energy saving incentive schemes, and the environmental sensitivity and information were lower. We consider as dependent variable the frequency with which individuals switch the light off when leaving a room; as monetary drivers, income and perceived energy costs; while non-monetary motives in our model are measured by proxies of pro-environmental attitudes, environmental information, social pressure, and pro-social behaviours. The analysis is based on probit and logit models estimated on a sample from the Multipurpose Household Survey dataset, conducted by the Italian Statistical Office. We find that individuals who were less concerned about environmental issues were also more attentive in energy saving behaviour, suggesting, together with results about income and perceived energy costs, that monetary motivations were primary in driving this energy saving behaviour. Such findings are robust to the inclusion of variables accounting for pro-social behaviours. Altruism by individuals who claim to be more concerned about broad environmental externalities may have adversely affected their propensity to optimize energy consumption.

Keywords: Energy saving; Pro-environmental attitudes; Environmental information; Pro-environmental behaviours; Pro-social behaviours; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C25 Q53 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:165:y:2019:i:c:14

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106386

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