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American Economic Review Vol. 105 No. 5 2015

Are the Non-Monetary Costs of Energy Efficiency Investments Large? Understanding Low Take-up of a Free Energy Efficiency Program

Meredith Fowlie1; Michael Greenstone2; Catherine Wolfram3

1 UC Berkeley, 207 Giannini Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, and NBER (e-mail: ) · 2 University of Chicago, 1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, and NBER (e-mail: ) · 3 UC Berkeley, Student Services Building, S545, Berkeley, CA 94720, and NBER (e-mail: )

Abstract

We document very low take-up of an energy efficiency program that is widely believed to be privately beneficial. Program participants receive a substantial home “weatherization” retrofit; all installation and equipment costs are covered by the program. Less than 1 percent of presumptively eligible households take up the program in the control group. This rate increased only modestly after we took extraordinary efforts to inform households—via multiple channels–about the sizable benefits and zero monetary costs. These findings are consistent with high non-monetary costs associated with program participation and/or energy efficiency investments.

DOI
10.1257/aer.p20151011
Volume
105
Issue
5
Pages
201-204
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

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