IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jecrev/v73y2022i1d10.1007_s42973-021-00093-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainability of renewable energy investment motivations during a feed-in-tariff scheme transition: evidence from a laboratory experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Jun Maekawa

    (Ritsumeikan University)

  • Koji Shimada

    (Ritsumeikan University)

  • Ai Takeuchi

    (Ritsumeikan University)

Abstract

This study analyzes the effects of a feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme’s transition on renewable energy investments. We model an individual’s investment decisions as a public goods game where the FIT scheme’s purchasing price acts as a subsidy that lowers the individual’s investment cost. Using a laboratory experiment, we study the effects of a decreasing purchasing price by comparing it to a counterfactual situation where the FIT scheme is not introduced. Although a high purchasing price induces higher investments, this external incentive seems to crowd out an individual’s intrinsic motivation: when the purchasing price decreases to zero, an individual’s investments are lower than they are in the counterfactual situation. Considering the possibility that motivation crowding out has occurred during the FIT phase-out process, it is important to introduce a new policy instrument without a break to stimulate renewable energy investments.

Suggested Citation

  • Jun Maekawa & Koji Shimada & Ai Takeuchi, 2022. "Sustainability of renewable energy investment motivations during a feed-in-tariff scheme transition: evidence from a laboratory experiment," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 83-101, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jecrev:v:73:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s42973-021-00093-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s42973-021-00093-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s42973-021-00093-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s42973-021-00093-9?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew Kotchen & Michael Moore, 2008. "Conservation: From Voluntary Restraint to a Voluntary Price Premium," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 40(2), pages 195-215, June.
    2. Rachel T. A. Croson, 2007. "Theories Of Commitment, Altruism And Reciprocity: Evidence From Linear Public Goods Games," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(2), pages 199-216, April.
    3. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    4. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2006. "Environmental Morale and Motivation," IEW - Working Papers 288, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Fischbacher, Urs & Gachter, Simon & Fehr, Ernst, 2001. "Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 397-404, June.
    6. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:8:p:771-781 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Kocher, Martin G. & Cherry, Todd & Kroll, Stephan & Netzer, Robert J. & Sutter, Matthias, 2008. "Conditional cooperation on three continents," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 175-178, December.
    8. Lipp, Judith, 2007. "Lessons for effective renewable electricity policy from Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5481-5495, November.
    9. Lenka Fiala & Sigrid Suetens, 2017. "Transparency and cooperation in repeated dilemma games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 755-771, December.
    10. Urs Fischbacher & Simon Gachter, 2010. "Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 541-556, March.
    11. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    12. Neugebauer, Tibor & Perote, Javier & Schmidt, Ulrich & Loos, Malte, 2009. "Selfish-biased conditional cooperation: On the decline of contributions in repeated public goods experiments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 52-60, February.
    13. Philippe Menanteau & Dominique Finon & Marie-Laure Lamy, 2003. "Prices versus quantities :environmental policies for promoting the development of renewable energy," Post-Print halshs-00480457, HAL.
    14. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    15. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gaechter, "undated". "Do Incentive Contracts Crowd out Voluntary Cooperation?," IEW - Working Papers 034, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    16. Kotchen, Matthew J. & Moore, Michael R., 2007. "Private provision of environmental public goods: Household participation in green-electricity programs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-16, January.
    17. Arnab Mitra & Michael R. Moore, 2018. "Green Electricity Markets as Mechanisms of Public-Goods Provision: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(1), pages 45-71, September.
    18. Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 1997. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 746-755, September.
    19. Menanteau, Philippe & Finon, Dominique & Lamy, Marie-Laure, 2003. "Prices versus quantities: choosing policies for promoting the development of renewable energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 799-812, June.
    20. Murphy, Ryan O. & Ackermann, Kurt A. & Handgraaf, Michel J. J., 2011. "Measuring Social Value Orientation," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(8), pages 771-781, December.
    21. Rickerson, Wilson H. & Sawin, Janet L. & Grace, Robert C., 2007. "If the Shoe FITs: Using Feed-in Tariffs to Meet U.S. Renewable Electricity Targets," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 73-86, May.
    22. Jana Gallus, 2017. "Fostering Public Good Contributions with Symbolic Awards: A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment at Wikipedia," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 3999-4015, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Baixun & Zhao, Wenjuan, 2022. "Interplay of renewable energy investment efficiency, shareholder control and green financial development in China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 192-203.
    2. Alcorta, Peio & Espinosa, Maria Paz & Pizarro-Irizar, Cristina, 2023. "Who bears the risk? Incentives for renewable electricity under strategic interaction between regulator and investors," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Takeuchi, Ai & Seki, Erika, 2023. "Coordination and free-riding problems in the provision of multiple public goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 95-121.
    2. Martin G. Kocher & Peter Martinsson & Kristian Ove R. Myrseth & Conny E. Wollbrant, 2017. "Strong, bold, and kind: self-control and cooperation in social dilemmas," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(1), pages 44-69, March.
    3. Kurt A. Ackermann & Ryan O. Murphy, 2019. "Explaining Cooperative Behavior in Public Goods Games: How Preferences and Beliefs Affect Contribution Levels," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-34, March.
    4. Simon Gächter & Elke Renner, 2010. "The effects of (incentivized) belief elicitation in public goods experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(3), pages 364-377, September.
    5. Kölle, Felix & Gächter, Simon & Quercia, Simone, 2014. "The ABC of Cooperation in Voluntary Contribution and Common Pool Extraction Games," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100417, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Gächter, Simon & Renner, Elke, 2014. "Leaders as Role Models for the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods," IZA Discussion Papers 8580, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Liu, Jia & Sonntag, Axel & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2022. "Information defaults in repeated public good provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 356-369.
    8. Simon Gächter & Elke Renner, 2010. "The effects of (incentivized) belief elicitation in public goods experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(3), pages 364-377, September.
    9. Dominique Cappelletti & Werner Güth & Matteo Ploner, 2011. "Unravelling conditional cooperation - Reciprocity, inequity aversion, and anchoring in public goods provision," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-047, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    10. Urs Fischbacher & Simon Gaechter, 2008. "Heterogeneous Social Preferences And The Dynamics Of Free Riding In Public Good Experiments," Discussion Papers 2008-07, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    11. Riedel, Nadine & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah, 2013. "Asymmetric obligations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 67-80.
    12. Boosey, Luke A., 2017. "Conditional cooperation in network public goods experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 108-116.
    13. Kreitmair, Ursula & Bower-Bir, Jacob, 2021. "Too different to solve climate change? Experimental evidence on the effects of production and benefit heterogeneity on collective action," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    14. Hongyu Guan & Xianchen Zhu & Ping Zhang, 2016. "Rule-Inequality-Aversion Preference and Conditional Cooperation in Public Goods Experiments: Economic Experiment Evidence from China," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 799-825, July.
    15. Hoeft, Leonard & Mill, Wladislaw, 2024. "Abuse of power," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 305-324.
    16. Urs Fischbacher & Simon Gachter, 2010. "Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 541-556, March.
    17. Florian Engl & Arno Riedl & Roberto Weber, 2021. "Spillover Effects of Institutions on Cooperative Behavior, Preferences, and Beliefs," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 261-299, November.
    18. Gaudeul, Alexia & Crosetto, Paolo & Riener, Gerhard, 2017. "Better stuck together or free to go? Of the stability of cooperation when individuals have outside options," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 99-112.
    19. Barron, Kai & Nurminen, Tuomas, 2020. "Nudging cooperation in public goods provision," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 88, pages 1-1.
    20. Ismaël Rafaï & Mira Toumi, 2017. "Pay Attention or Be Paid for Attention? Impact of Incentives on Allocation of Attention," GREDEG Working Papers 2017-11, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.

    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:spr:jecrev:v:73:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s42973-021-00093-9. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.