IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeeman/v130y2025ics0095069624001542.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Money versus procedures — Evidence from an energy efficiency assistance program

Author

Listed:
  • Chlond, Bettina
  • Goeschl, Timo
  • Kesternich, Martin

Abstract

In many countries, governments have put in place targeted programs intended to support energy efficiency investments by low-income households, but have encountered low take-up even when subsidies are high. Using evidence from a large energy efficiency assistance program, we demonstrate that seemingly small procedural changes can substantially improve take-up and that these changes have effects comparable to significantly raising subsidies. Observing 77,305 durable goods purchase decisions in a refrigerator replacement program, our RD design exploits two quasi-exogenous temporal discontinuities in voucher value and procedures. Despite seeming disadvantageous, the procedural changes actually raise replacement rates among the target demographic of low-income households, an effect roughly equivalent to raising voucher values by 35 Euro. These results suggest that even under fixed budgets, the performance of energy efficiency assistance programs can be improved through empirically guided procedural design.

Suggested Citation

  • Chlond, Bettina & Goeschl, Timo & Kesternich, Martin, 2025. "Money versus procedures — Evidence from an energy efficiency assistance program," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:130:y:2025:i:c:s0095069624001542
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2024.103080
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069624001542
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jeem.2024.103080?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Energy efficiency; Technology adoption; Consumer durable replacement; Assistance programs; Low-income households; Procedural design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:130:y:2025:i:c:s0095069624001542. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622870 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.