 Proof of concept that requiring energy labels for dwellings can induce retrofittingDavid A. Comerford, Ian Lange and Mirko Moro Energy Economics, 2018, vol. 69, issue C, 204-212 Abstract: How to induce households to install energy efficient technology remains a puzzle. Could an energy labeling requirement for residential real estate help? We propose that the salient color-letter grades on the English Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) served as targets, motivating vendors to invest in energy efficiency. To test our hypothesis we look to a random sample of over 16,000 homes in England. In the post-EPC data we find a cluster of homes with energy efficiency scores just above the D-grade threshold. This cluster was not present prior to the requirement, replicates in an independently-drawn random sample and is significantly larger amongst properties that can be identified as treated by the EPC requirement. We conclude that the EPC requirement induced investment, and hence that energy efficiency labels have potential to green the housing stock. We infer from our analysis how the design of the EPC could be altered to motivate greater investment in energy efficiency. Keywords: Energy labels; Retrofitting; Selective attention; Residential energy use; Notches; Energy efficiency gap (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:69:y:2018:i:c:p:204-212 DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2017.11.013 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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