Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/61434 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Ruhr Economic Papers No. 335
Publisher: 
Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI), Essen
Abstract: 
A longstanding question in the study of energy demand concerns the role of information as a determinant of home-efficiency improvements. Although the provision of information via home energy audits is frequently asserted to be an effective means for governments to encourage the implementation of efficiency-enhancing renovations, empirical support for this assertion is tenuous at best. Apart from self-selection issues with respect to receiving an audit, two other factors have complicated attempts to measure their effect: first, the nature of the information provided by the audit is typically unobserved, and, second, the response to this information may vary over households. Using household-level data from Germany, we address both sources of heterogeneity by estimating a random-parameter model of four retrofitting alternatives. In addition to confirming the importance of costs and savings as determinants of renovation choices, our results suggest that the effects of consultancy vary substantially across households, with some households responding negatively to the provision of information.
Subjects: 
Energy audit
mixed logit
random-coefficient models
JEL: 
C35
D81
Q41
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-3-86788-385-6
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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