 Inform me when it matters: Cost salience, energy consumption, and efficiency investmentsPuja Singhal Energy Economics, 2024, vol. 133, issue C Abstract: Using a large-scale natural experiment in staggered billing dates for energy use in Germany and a unique billing dataset for multi-apartment buildings, this paper shows that the month of billing is a significant determinant of heat energy consumption. A large set of residential buildings demand significantly more heat energy annually, when the bill is issued during off-winter months. The paper finds evidence for salience cycles of heating bills that last up to 4 months, likely because consumer attention to heat energy costs is short-lived and absent during months when heating is off. Importantly, this phenomena is pervasive enough to be detectable even in aggregated building-level consumption data. Results suggest that the mere knowledge of costs is not sufficient and that the response to billing information also hinges on its time-varying salience. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of cost salience in the design of effective billing for energy conservation. Keywords: Heating bills; Natural experiment; Cost salience; Consumer inattention; Energy consumption; Energy efficiency (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:eneeco:v:133:y:2024:i:c:s0140988324001920 DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107484 Access Statistics for this article Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier |
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