IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/kitiip/67.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wealth, consumption, and energy-efficiency investments

Author

Listed:
  • Britto, Anthony
  • Dehler-Holland, Joris
  • Fichtner, Wolf

Abstract

We revisit optimal investment in energy-efficiency, presenting a decision framework built around the agent's wealth and wealth dynamic. An investment rule in the form of a trigger is derived such that the agent invests the first time the energy-carrier price crosses this threshold from below. Wealthier consumers, and those whose wealth grows faster, are seen to have less incentive to invest in energy-efficiency and alternative technologies. We investigate the market for heat pump upgrades in Germany and find scant evidence of an energy-efficiency gap. Modest carbon taxes coupled with subsidies suffice to generate stated policy goals in the short term.

Suggested Citation

  • Britto, Anthony & Dehler-Holland, Joris & Fichtner, Wolf, 2022. "Wealth, consumption, and energy-efficiency investments," Working Paper Series in Production and Energy 67, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Industrial Production (IIP).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:kitiip:67
    DOI: 10.5445/IR/1000152410
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/266551/1/1823525415.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5445/IR/1000152410?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Gillingham & Karen Palmer, 2014. "Bridging the Energy Efficiency Gap: Policy Insights from Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(1), pages 18-38, January.
    2. Schleich, Joachim & Gassmann, Xavier & Faure, Corinne & Meissner, Thomas, 2016. "Making the implicit explicit: A look inside the implicit discount rate," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 321-331.
    3. Richard G. Newell & Juha Siikamäki, 2015. "Individual Time Preferences and Energy Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 196-200, May.
    4. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2012. "Homeowners' preferences for adopting innovative residential heating systems: A discrete choice analysis for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1271-1283.
    5. Shafiee, Shahriar & Topal, Erkan, 2010. "A long-term view of worldwide fossil fuel prices," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 988-1000, March.
    6. Rockstuhl, Sebastian & Wenninger, Simon & Wiethe, Christian & Häckel, Björn, 2021. "Understanding the risk perception of energy efficiency investments: Investment perspective vs. energy bill perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    7. Åberg, M. & Henning, D., 2011. "Optimisation of a Swedish district heating system with reduced heat demand due to energy efficiency measures in residential buildings," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 7839-7852.
    8. 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.
    9. Jerry A. Hausman, 1979. "Individual Discount Rates and the Purchase and Utilization of Energy-Using Durables," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 33-54, Spring.
    10. Anna Alberini, Silvia Banfi, and Celine Ramseier, 2013. "Energy Efficiency Investments in the Home: Swiss Homeowners and Expectations about Future Energy Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    11. Jaffe, Adam B. & Stavins, Robert N., 1994. "The energy-efficiency gap What does it mean?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 804-810, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Fischbacher, Urs & Schudy, Simeon & Teyssier, Sabrina, 2021. "Heterogeneous preferences and investments in energy saving measures," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Rockstuhl, Sebastian & Wenninger, Simon & Wiethe, Christian & Ahlrichs, Jakob, 2022. "The influence of risk perception on energy efficiency investments: Evidence from a German survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    3. Schleich, Joachim & Gassmann, Xavier & Faure, Corinne & Meissner, Thomas, 2016. "Making the implicit explicit: A look inside the implicit discount rate," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 321-331.
    4. Knobloch, Florian & Pollitt, Hector & Chewpreecha, Unnada & Lewney, Richard & Huijbregts, Mark A.J. & Mercure, Jean-Francois, 2021. "FTT:Heat — A simulation model for technological change in the European residential heating sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. Häckel, Björn & Pfosser, Stefan & Tränkler, Timm, 2017. "Explaining the energy efficiency gap - Expected Utility Theory versus Cumulative Prospect Theory," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 414-426.
    6. Olsthoorn, Mark & Schleich, Joachim & Faure, Corinne, 2019. "Exploring the diffusion of low-energy houses: An empirical study in the European Union," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1382-1393.
    7. Laura Abrardi, 2019. "Behavioral barriers and the energy efficiency gap: a survey of the literature," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 46(1), pages 25-43, March.
    8. Dimitris Damigos & Christina Kaliampakou & Anastasios Balaskas & Lefkothea Papada, 2021. "Does Energy Poverty Affect Energy Efficiency Investment Decisions? First Evidence from a Stated Choice Experiment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-17, March.
    9. Dalia Streimikiene & Tomas Balezentis & Irena Alebaite, 2020. "Climate Change Mitigation in Households between Market Failures and Psychological Barriers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-21, June.
    10. Anil Markandya & Xavier Labandeira & Ana Ramos, 2013. "Policy Instruments to Foster Energy Efficiency," Working Papers 01-2014, Economics for Energy.
    11. Rockstuhl, Sebastian & Wenninger, Simon & Wiethe, Christian & Häckel, Björn, 2021. "Understanding the risk perception of energy efficiency investments: Investment perspective vs. energy bill perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    12. Andersen, Kristoffer Steen & Wiese, Catharina & Petrovic, Stefan & McKenna, Russell, 2020. "Exploring the role of households’ hurdle rates and demand elasticities in meeting Danish energy-savings target," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    13. Samdruk Dharshing & Stefanie Lena Hille, 2017. "The Energy Paradox Revisited: Analyzing the Role of Individual Differences and Framing Effects in Information Perception," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 485-508, December.
    14. Feser, Daniel & Bizer, Kilian & Rudolph-Cleff, Annette & Schulze, Joachim, 2016. "Energy audits in a private firm environment: Energy efficiency consultants' cost calculation for innovative technologies in the housing sector," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 275, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    15. Todd D. Gerarden & Richard G. Newell & Robert N. Stavins, 2017. "Assessing the Energy-Efficiency Gap," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1486-1525, December.
    16. Florian Knobloch & Hector Pollitt & Unnada Chewpreecha & Vassilis Daioglou & Jean-Francois Mercure, 2017. "Simulating the deep decarbonisation of residential heating for limiting global warming to 1.5C," Papers 1710.11019, arXiv.org, revised May 2018.
    17. Sébastien Foudi, 2024. "Are risk attitude, impatience, and impulsivity related to the individual discount rate? Evidence from energy-efficient durable goods," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 96(4), pages 627-661, June.
    18. Schleich, Joachim & Faure, Corinne & Meissner, Thomas, 2021. "Adoption of retrofit measures among homeowners in EU countries: The effects of access to capital and debt aversion," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    19. Eliana Carranza & Robyn Meeks, 2021. "Energy Efficiency and Electricity Reliability," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(3), pages 461-475, July.
    20. Huaccha, Gissell, 2023. "Regional persistence of the energy efficiency gap: Evidence from England and Wales," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    energy-efficiency gap; energetic building retrofits; wealth dynamics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • 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
    • Q49 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:kitiip:67. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.iip.kit.edu/ .

    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.