From Green Users to Green Voters

Diego Comin and Johannes Rode

No 19219, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study the effect of the diffusion of photovoltaic (PV) systems on the fraction of votes obtained by the German Green Party in federal elections. Using both regional and household survey data, we show that households that adopted PV systems became more supportive of the Green Party. We estimate that the adoption of domestic PV systems led to 25 percent of the increment in green votes between 1998 and 2009. Our results are robust to instrumentation using regional variation in solar radiation and past experience adopting non-green technologies. We conjecture that these results are driven by cognitive dissonance.

JEL-codes: D72 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-env, nep-pol and nep-reg
Note: EEE POL PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Working Paper: From Green Users to Green Voters (2013)
Working Paper: From Green Users to Green Voters (2013)
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