Do environmental benefits matter? Evidence from a choice experiment among house owners in Germany

B-Tier
Journal: Ecological Economics
Year: 2011
Volume: 70
Issue: 11
Pages: 2191-2200

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Residential buildings strongly contribute to global CO2 emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating, particularly in industrialised countries. Within the EU, decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy, as its emissions are not covered by the EU ETS. We conducted a choice experiment concerning energy retrofits for existing houses in Germany. In the experiment, the approximately 400 sampled house owners could either choose a modern heating system or an improved thermal insulation for their home. We used standard and mixed logit specifications to analyse the choice data. We found environmental benefits to have a significant impact on choices of heating systems. However, they played no role in terms of insulation choices. Based on the estimated mixed logit model, we further obtained willingness-to-pay (WTP) measures for CO2 savings.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:ecolec:v:70:y:2011:i:11:p:2191-2200
Journal Field
Environment
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-24