TY - JOUR A1 - Blasch, Julia A1 - Filippini, Massimo A1 - Kumar, Nilkanth T1 - Boundedly rational consumers, energy and investment literacy, and the display of information on household appliances JF - Resource and Energy Economics N2 - It is an ongoing debate how to increase the adoption of energy-efficient light bulbs and household appliances in the presence of the so-called ‘energy efficiency gap’. One measure to support consumers’ decision-making towards the purchase of more efficient appliances is the display of energy-related information in the form of energy-efficiency labels on electric consumer products. Another measure is to educate consumers in order to increase their level of energy and investment literacy. Thus, two questions arise when it comes to the display of energy-related information on appliances: (1) What kind of information should be displayed to enable consumers to make rational and efficient choices? (2) What abilities and prior knowledge do consumers need to possess to be able to process this information? In this paper, using a series of (recursive) bivariate probit models and three samples of 583, 877 and 1375 households from three major Swiss urban areas, we show how displaying information on the future energy consumption of electrical appliances in monetary terms (CHF), rather than in physical units (kWh), increases the probability that an individual makes a calculation and identifies the appliance with the lowest lifetime cost. In addition, our econometric results suggest that individuals with a higher level of energy and, in particular, investment literacy are more likely to perform an optimization rather than relying on a decision-making heuristic. These individuals are also more likely to identify the most (cost-)efficient appliance. UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2017.06.001 KW - Energy-efficiency KW - Bounded rationality KW - Energy-using durables KW - Energy label KW - Energy literacy KW - Online randomized controlled trial Y1 - 2017 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2017.06.001 UR - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:573-26997 SN - 0928-7655 VL - 2019 IS - 56 SP - 39 EP - 58 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Blasch, Julia A1 - Filippini, Massimo A1 - Kumar, Nilkanth A1 - Martinez-Cruz, Adan Leobardo T1 - Boosting the choice of energy-efficient home appliances BT - the effectiveness of two types of decision support JF - Applied Economics N2 - Consumers’ limitations in assessing the lifetime cost of household appliances may sustain the much-cited energy efficiency gap. We analyse the impact of an individual’s energy and investment literacy and two different types of decision support on the ability to identify the appliance with the lower lifetime cost in an online randomized controlled trial among two independently chosen samples of the Swiss population. In a decision task, participants choose between appliances with different lifetime cost. One treatment offers a short education programme on how to calculate the lifetime cost of an appliance – via a set of information slides. The second treatment provides access to an online lifetime-cost calculator tool. We find that pre-treatment energy and investment literacy are positively associated with the probability of identifying the appliance with the lowest lifetime cost. Evidence in this paper suggest that both decision aids boost identification of energy-efficient appliances. We discuss strategies to scale up these boosters. UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2021.2014395 KW - energy efficiency KW - bounded rationality KW - deliberation cost KW - boosting KW - online tools KW - energy and investment literacy Y1 - 2022 UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2021.2014395 UR - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:573-16982 SN - 1466-4283 VL - 54 IS - 31 SP - 3598 EP - 3620 PB - Routledge CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Blasch, Julia A1 - Boogen, Nina A1 - Filippini, Massimo A1 - Kumar, Nilkanth T1 - Explaining electricity demand and the role of energy and investment literacy on end-use efficiency of Swiss households JF - Energy Economics UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2017.12.004 KW - Stochastic frontier analysi KW - Transient and persistent efficiency KW - Residential electricity demand KW - Energy literacy KW - Investment literacy Y1 - 2017 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2017.12.004 SN - 0140-9883 VL - 2017 IS - 68, Supplement 1 SP - 89 EP - 102 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Blasch, Julia A1 - Filippini, Massimo A1 - Kumar, Nilkanth A1 - Martinez-Cruz, Adan Leobardo T1 - Narrowing the energy efficiency gap BT - The impact of educational programs, online support tools and energy-related investment literacy T2 - Economics Working Paper Series UR - https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000187391 KW - energy-efficient appliances KW - energy-related investment literacy KW - appliance choice KW - bounded rationality KW - educational programs KW - online tool Y1 - 2017 UR - https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000187391 VL - 17/276 PB - ETH Zurich, Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) CY - Zürich ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Blasch, Julia A1 - Boogen, Nina A1 - Filippini, Massimo A1 - Kumar, Nilkanth T1 - The role of energy and investment literacy for residential electricity demand and end-use efficiency T2 - Economics Working Paper Series UR - https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-a-010870845 KW - Stochastic frontier analysis KW - Transient and persistent efficiency KW - Energy literacy KW - Investment literacy KW - Energy saving behaviour KW - Residential electricity demand KW - Household data Y1 - 2017 UR - https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-a-010870845 VL - 17/269 PB - ETH Zurich, Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) CY - Zürich ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Blasch, Julia A1 - Filippini, Massimo A1 - Kumar, Nilkanth T1 - Boundedly rational consumers, energy and investment literacy, and the display of information on household appliances T2 - Economics Working Paper Series UR - https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-a-010656875 KW - energy-efficiency KW - bounded rationality KW - energy-using durables KW - information KW - energy label KW - energy literacy KW - choice experiment Y1 - 2016 UR - https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-a-010656875 VL - 16/249 PB - ETH Zurich, Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) CY - Zürich ER -