Heterogeneous preferences and investments in energy saving measures

Urs Fischbacher, Simeon Schudy and Sabrina Teyssier

Resource and Energy Economics, 2021, vol. 63, issue C

Abstract: We investigate whether risk, time, environmental, and social preferences affect single-family homeowners’ investments in the energy efficiency of their house using established experimental measures and questionnaires. We find that homeowners who report to be more risk taking are more likely to have renovated their house. Pro-environmental and future-oriented renovators, i.e. renovators with lower discount factors, live in homes with higher energy efficiency. Pro-social preferences as measured in a dictator game relates positively to the energy quality of renovated houses. Controlling for the energy efficiency of houses, we further find that energy consumption as measured by heating and electricity costs is lower for future-oriented and pro-environmental individuals.

Keywords: Risk preferences; Time preferences; Environmental preferences; Social preferences; Energy efficiency; Artefactual field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D03 Q01 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928765520304115
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Heterogeneous preferences and investments in energy saving measures (2021)
Working Paper: Heterogeneous Preferences and Investments in Energy Saving Measures (2015)
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:eee:resene:v:63:y:2021:i:c:s0928765520304115

DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2020.101202

Access Statistics for this article

Resource and Energy Economics is currently edited by J. F. Shogren and S. Smulders

More articles in Resource and Energy Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().