IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v95y1987i5p1089-97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cold Houses in Warm Climates and Vice Versa: A Paradox of Rational Heating

Author

Listed:
  • Friedman, David

Abstract

Houses in cold climates are kept warmer in winter than those in warm climates, des pite the greater cost of heating in colder climates. It is shown that this is not only consistent with, but also implied by, rationality. The contrary intuition is based on a confusion between average and ma rginal cost. The same analysis implies that it is rational to keep th e thermostat setting constant throughout the heating season rather th an changing it with changes in external temperature. Copyright 1987 by University of Chicago Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Friedman, David, 1987. "Cold Houses in Warm Climates and Vice Versa: A Paradox of Rational Heating," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1089-1097, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:95:y:1987:i:5:p:1089-97
    DOI: 10.1086/261503
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/261503
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/261503?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.

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Not ready for the rain, in northern Chile
      by Tyler Cowen in Marginal Revolution on 2011-08-08 01:47:11

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Johnston, David W. & Knott, Rachel & Mendolia, Silvia & Siminski, Peter, 2021. "Upside-Down Down-Under: Cold Temperatures Reduce Learning in Australia," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. Ana Ramos & Xavier Labandeira & Andreas Löschel, 2016. "Pro-environmental Households and Energy Efficiency in Spain," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(2), pages 367-393, February.
    3. Levinson, Arik & Niemann, Scott, 2004. "Energy use by apartment tenants when landlords pay for utilities," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 51-75, March.
    4. Thompson, Philip B, 1997. "Evaluating energy efficiency investments: accounting for risk in the discounting process," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(12), pages 989-996, October.
    5. Meredith Fowlie & Michael Greenstone & Catherine Wolfram, 2018. "Do Energy Efficiency Investments Deliver? Evidence from the Weatherization Assistance Program," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1597-1644.
    6. Tyler Cowen, 2005. "Self-deception as the root of political failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 437-451, September.
    7. Barro, Robert J, 1989. "An Efficiency-Wage Theory of the Weather," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 999-1001, August.
    8. Walter Y. Oi, 1996. "The Welfare Implications of Invention," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of New Goods, pages 109-142, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Xavier Labandeira & Ana Ramos, 2012. "Household Environmental Attitudes and Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Evidence from Spanish Data," Working Papers fa08-2012, Economics for Energy.
    10. Schuler, Andreas & Weber, Christoph & Fahl, Ulrich, 2000. "Energy consumption for space heating of West-German households: empirical evidence, scenario projections and policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 877-894, October.
    11. Kaiser, Mark J. & Pulsipher, Allan G., 2010. "Preliminary assessment of the Louisiana Home Energy Rebate Offer program using IPMVP guidelines," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 691-702, February.
    12. Choi, Seok Joon & Kim, Sangsin, 2012. "Why Do Landlords Include Utilities in Rent? Evidence from the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study (HDS) and the 2002 American Housing Survey (AHS)," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 28-40.
    13. Simon Cowan, 2007. "The welfare effects of third-degree price discrimination with nonlinear demand functions," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 419-428, June.
    14. Simon GB Cowan & Simon Cowan, 2004. "Demand shifts and imperfect competition," Economics Series Working Papers 188, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Philip B. Thompson, 2002. "Consumer Theory, Home Production, And Energy Efficiency," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(1), pages 50-59, January.
    16. Cowan, Simon, 2004. "Optimal risk allocation for regulated monopolies and consumers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 285-303, January.

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jpolec:v:95:y:1987:i:5:p:1089-97. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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.