Big Hassle on the Decarbonization Frontier

Sébastien Houde, Maya Papineau, Nicholas Rivers and Kareman Yassin

No 12326, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We introduce the concept of marginal hassle cost (MHC)–the opportunity cost of time required to complete burdensome administrative tasks–as a measure of non-pecuniary transaction costs. We then propose an experimental procedure to elicit the MHC and validate the approach through a large-scale field experiment on heat pump adoption in Canada. On average, the MHC is equal to respondents’ wage rate, but it exhibits substantial individual heterogeneity and is only weakly correlated with wages. MHCs are systematically higher for human-assisted than for computer-assisted tasks. Our findings highlight that total hassle costs are economically significant and deter participation in government programs aimed at decarbonization.

Keywords: hassle costs; government programs; decarbonization; field experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H20 H31 Q40 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12326

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