Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/205148 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper Sustainability and Innovation No. S08/2019
Publisher: 
Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI, Karlsruhe
Abstract: 
Energy efficiency policies often involve low-interest loans for retrofit measures in private buildings; the main target of these loans are meant to be households with otherwise poor access to capital. However, such programs can only be successful if the targeted households also take up these loans. This paper stud-ies the relation between access to capital and debt aversion and the adoption of retrofit measures in European Union countries, employing a demographically representative household survey including about 6,600 homeowners in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The findings suggest that debt aversion negatively affects the adoption of retro-fit measures by homeowners. In particular, debt-averse homeowners with poor access to capital are less likely to have adopted retrofit measures than non-debt-averse homeowners with poor access to capital. The findings further pro-vide evidence that low-interest loan programs should be targeted at younger homeowners with lower income and less formal education.
Subjects: 
energy efficiency
debt aversion
soft loans
energy policy
econo-metrics
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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