an incentive aligned mechanism for conjoint analysis abstract this article specifies analyzes and validates a rigorous and practical truth telling mechanism game for conjoint applications the mechanism requires only one real product variation and has truth telling in conjoint as its bayesian nash equilibrium thus making it possible to incentive align participants in most conjoint applications using the ipod package as the context the author shows empirically that the mechanism substantially improves purchase prediction compared with a standard conjoint procedure

increasing consumer participation rates for green pricing programs a choice experiment for south korea abstract this study examines the factors that can increase consumer participation rates in green pricing programs by conducting a choice experiment in south korea estimation results were obtained from a conditional logit conditional logit with interaction terms random parameter logit random parameter logit with correlation and individual level coefficient models a novelty of our analysis was the consideration of monetary and non monetary incentives as factors influencing consumer uptake in green pricing programs the estimation results show that increased consumer participation in green pricing programs is positively linked with green energy sources that produce fewer externalities more jobs and monetary incentives such as tax credits or green mileage however there is an inverted u shaped relationship between participation rates and the share of green electricity in total electricity supply mean willingness to pay for fuel cells is highest followed by solar and wind energy estimation from the random parameter logit with allowing for correlations among random coefficients of attributes reveals that consumers are divided into green pro environment consumers and blue growth oriented consumers green consumers prefer a higher green electricity share solar or fuel cell to wind a greater proximity of green power plants to their homes and green mileage or green parks to tax credits in comparison blue consumers favor a lower green electricity share green power plants that are far from their homes and monetary incentives rather than non monetary incentives the results of this study suggest guidelines for the design of successful green pricing programs green pricing programs that are designed with information on types of green energy sources consider the distance of power plants to consumers residences focus on the share of green electricity and incorporate monetary incentives are likely to have increased consumer participation rates

combining cartel penalties and private damage actions the impact on cartel prices abstract in many countries antitrust enforcement by competition authorities through prosecution and the imposition of penalties is complemented in price fixing cases by private damage actions which should affect both cartel deterrence and the prices set by those cartels that do form we show that the impact of combining penalties and damages on cartel prices is not clearcut and depends on both the nature of the penalty regime and the way that damages are calculated we demonstrate this by focusing on two ways of calculating damages that have been advocated in practice and two different forms of the widely used revenue based penalty regime when the simple form of revenue based penalties is in force the standard method of calculating damages worsens its harmful pricing effects whereas the proposed alternative method of calculating damages can overturn them when a more sophisticated form of revenue based penalties is in operation imposing damages will improve its beneficial pricing effects under both methods of damage calculation but the alternative method is more effective in all cases combining penalties and damages improves deterrence

diffusion of green power products in switzerland abstract as in many other european countries green electricity is an emerging product in switzerland as well although the market is yet to be liberalised more than 100 of the 1200 swiss electric utilities offer some sort of green electricity product to their customers successful companies like the municipal utilities of the cities of zurich and berne have reached customer response rates of up to 4 while still maintaining cost based pricing i e charging their customers price premiums of 400 700 per kwh while most of the products still rely on mainly photovoltaics some utilities have started to introduce mixed green electricity products also including wind power with a share of 60 in the swiss generation mix hydropower s role in the green electricity mix was also an issue to emerge causing controversial debate while being renewable hydropower is not considered environmentally benign by all the stakeholders and unlike new renewables solar wind biomass there is little room for new hydropower generation facilities in switzerland the green electricity labelling scheme naturemade tackles that issue the labelling organisation has evolved from a process with broad stakeholder involvement which included environmental ngos scientific institutions green electricity providers renewable energy advocates government bodies and consumer organisations the analysis in this paper is based on a diffusion theory framework it identifies and characterises different phases of past and future market development and stresses the importance of eco labelling as a tool to facilitate the transition from niche to mass market finally we also discuss conclusions that can be drawn from the swiss case towards market development and labelling on a european level

the investor specific price of renewable energy project risk a choice experiment with incumbent utilities and institutional investors abstract renewable energy investments in germany have recently soared trebling the output of wind and solar power generation in only ten years while incumbent utilities have lagged behind in terms of investment new entrants have significantly contributed to this growth existing literature has primarily focused on explaining the lethargy of incumbents former investments although there is a growing need to investigate recent investment drivers to secure the necessary power plant capacity at a moderate cost from incumbents and new entrants alike to close this gap a choice experiment involving 1 659 investment choices by 52 european professional investors was conducted in significant contrast to the case with altruistic investors this survey underlines the importance of using financial incentives to attract professional investors given full exposure to electricity price risk incumbent utilities would facilitate projects at a 3 04 risk premium whereas institutional investors demand 6 61 generally incumbent utilities and institutional investors are equally attracted by low risk projects however when risk increases institutional investors are more hesitant to become involved while incumbent utilities confidently navigate these higher risk projects

the permissibility of nudging for sustainable energy consumption abstract nudges modify decision frameworks in order to steer people s choices in particular directions modifying energy consumption choices through nudging has shown significant promise for promoting sustainable consumption behaviors however policy makers have been reluctant to embrace nudges due to concerns over potential ethical objections this paper argues that the major ethical objections to nudging are not ultimately convincing when applied to energy production and consumption the most common ethical objections claim that nudging is paternalistic and reduces human autonomy it is argued here that energy production and consumption are massively architectured which means that they are strongly influenced by factors external to individuals the infrastructure and framework for producing and consuming energy is largely determined prior to human decision making as a result it is not clear how nudging for sustainable energy consumption could be paternalistic or autonomy reducing ethical objections should thus not be a deterrent for policy makers pursuing nudges for sustainable energy consumption

modeling individual preferences for energy sources the case of iv generation nuclear energy in italy the planned re introduction of nuclear energy in italy was abandoned in the aftermath of the fukushima nuclear accident twenty years earlier soon after the chernobyl accident italians had also voted against nuclear energy however a new nuclear energy technology i e fourth generation is under research and development this paper investigates its social acceptance by means of a robust methodology employing 1 choice experiments 2 structural equation modeling and 3 information treatments within an online nation wide survey results show a great deal of preference heterogeneity the majority of the sampled respondents oppose new nuclear plants in italy with some not willing to accept any monetary compensation at all however another segment of respondents more confident that fourth generation nuclear energy goals will be achieved show a modest support towards the implementation of new nuclear projects additional variables were found to affect opposition

capacity constraints mergers and collusion abstract the objective of this paper is two fold to contribute to the analysis of tacit collusion in bertrand supergames with asymmetric capacity constraints and from a more applied perspective to bring a new light on merger analysis and provide useful guidelines for competition policy taking into account dynamic aspects of competition it is well known that capacity constraints affect tacit collusion as they limit both incentives to deviate e g to undercut rivals and retaliation possibilities however most studies have so far focused on symmetric situations where all firms have the same capacity which leads to ambiguous and unintuitive results and also considerably limits the scope of application studying asymmetric situations makes it possible to analyse the impact of changes in the distribution of these capacities expansions but also mergers split offs transfers etc and to provide guidelines for competition policy and particularly for merger policy these guidelines which differ substantially from those inspired by more static analyses such as the herfindahl or other standard concentration tests are applied to a famous merger that took place in the french bottled water market the nestle perrier merger case

competition policy and cartel size this article examines endogenous cartel formation in the presence of a competition authority competition policy is shown to make the most inclusive stable cartels less inclusive in particular small firms that might have been cartel members in the absence of a competition authority are no longer members regarding the least inclusive stable cartels competition policy can either decrease or increase their size and in the latter case the collusive price can rise

residential consumers in the cape peninsula s willingness to pay for premium priced green electricity a number of studies have explored the willingness i e stated willingness as opposed to actual willingness of consumers to pay a premium for green electricity in developed countries however little is known about how this translates into an emerging economy context this study investigates the level of willingness of residential households in south africa s cape peninsula to pay a premium for electricity from renewable energy it methodologically drew on recent contributions in the literature on norm motivated behaviour used to identify testable factors that could influence residential consumers willingness to pay wtp interestingly the study found a significant positive link between household income and wtp for green electricity contrary to the findings of some previous studies not only are higher income households more likely to pay a premium but typically they are also willing to pay a bigger premium it was also further established that the view that green electricity is reliable involvement in the recycling of waste and the belief that everyone should contribute to green electricity generation drive the wtp

long run competition in capacity short run competition in price and the cournot model in this article we investigate the nature of equilibrium in markets in which firms choose the scale of operation before they make pricing decisions we analyze a duopoly model in which firms choose their capacities before engaging in bertrand like price competition we demonstrate that the cournot outcome is unlikely to emerge in such markets and that the equilibrium tends to be more competitive than the cournot model would predict in addition our results indicate a tendency toward asymmetric firm sizes and price dispersion that results from the mixed strategies firms use in equilibrium

endogenous cartel formation with heterogeneous firms in the context of an infinitely repeated capacity constrained price game we endogenize the composition of a cartel when firms are heterogeneous in their capacities when firms are sufficiently patient there exists a stable cartel involving the largest firms a firm with sufficiently small capacity is not a member of any stable cartel when a cartel is not all inclusive colluding firms set a price that serves as an umbrella with non cartel members pricing below it and producing at capacity contrary to previous work our results suggest that the most severe coordinated effects may come from mergers involving moderate sized firms rather than the largest or smallest firms

preferences for green electricity investment and regulatory incentives abstract this paper develops a theoretical model to investigate how consumers preferences for green electricity affect the incentives of a regulated firm to provide and invest in electricity from green sources optimal incentive regulation implies a trade off between providing an optimal match of consumers with green and brown electricity and efficient incentives to invest in cost reductions we show that a single price cap on green electricity is ineffective as it yields the same expected market outcome as with an unregulated firm price caps on both green and brown electricity are akin to a market share target policy which implements efficient investment but gives an inefficient ex post consumer allocation a single price cap on brown electricity weakly dominates these schemes and gives rise to three different optimal regulation regimes as a function of the underlying technology parameters

factors influencing buying behaviour of green energy consumer green energy has gained significant research attention across the globe due to its ability to reduce environmental damage however for complete acceptance of green energy only government regulations are not enough the willingness to use green energy and contribute to the wellbeing of the environment should spring from within consumers such willingness may be developed by enhancing consumers perceived value of green energy however in order to do so it is necessary to assess existing levels of consumers perceived value towards green energy the present study develops a multidimensional green perceived value scale to measure existing levels of consumers perceived value the scale considers green perceived value as a multidimensional second order construct comprising functional value social value conditional value and emotional value dimensions such an attempt has not been made before which highlights the originality value of the present study the scale can be used to assess consumers perception towards green energy such information would help in formulating strategies that encourage consumers to voluntarily adopt green energy the study also reveals that it is not only the financial aspects that lead consumers to decide on adoption of green energy consumers are also driven by emotional and social considerations thus policy makers could formulate pro green energy programmes and mass messages that appeal to consumers sense of responsibility to voluntarily adopt green energy without having to rely on financial incentives researchers could examine the considered dimensions of the scale further with respect to other constructs related to consumer behaviour

consumers willingness to pay for green electricity a meta analysis of the literature at present electricity generated from power plants using renewable sources costs more than electricity generated from power plants using conventional fuels consumers bear these expenses directly or indirectly through higher prices for renewable energy or taxes the number of studies published over the last few years focusing on people s preferences for renewables has increased steadily making it more and more difficult to identify key explanatory factors that determine people s willingness to pay wtp for renewables we present results of a meta regression on valuation of consumer preferences for a larger share of renewable energy in their electricity mix our meta regression results reveal a number of important factors that explain the differences in wtp values for renewable energy different valuation methods show widely different values with choice experiments producing the highest estimates our results further indicate that consumers wtp for green electricity differs by source with hydropower being the least valued variables that are often omitted from primary valuation studies are important in explaining differences in values these variables describe individual and household characteristics as well as information on the type of power plant that will be replaced by renewables further the marginal effect of a survey conducted in the us is pronounced we also assess the potential for using the results for out of sample value transfer and find a median error of 21 c 2015 elsevier b v all rights reserved

how should consumers willingness to pay be measured an empirical comparison of state of the art approaches abstract this study compares the performance of four commonly used approaches to measure consumers willingness to pay with real purchase data real the open ended oe question format choice based conjoint cbc analysis becker degroot and marschak s bdm incentive compatible mechanism and incentive aligned choice based conjoint icbc analysis with this five in one approach the authors test the relative strengths of the four measurement methods using real as the benchmark on the basis of statistical criteria and decision relevant metrics the results indicate that the bdm and icbc approaches can pass statistical and decision oriented tests the authors find that respondents are more price sensitive in incentive aligned settings than in non incentive aligned settings and the real setting furthermore they find a large number of none choices under icbc than under hypothetical conjoint analysis this study uncovers an intriguing possibility even when the oe format and cbc analysis generate

utility in willingness to pay space a tool to address confounding random scale effects in destination choice to the alps we compare two approaches for estimating the distribution of consumers willingness to pay wtp in discrete choice models the usual procedure is to estimate the distribution of the utility coefficients and then derive the distribution of wtp which is the ratio of coefficients the alternative is to estimate the distribution of wtp directly we apply both approaches to data on site choice in the alps we find that the alternative approach fits the data better reduces the incidence of exceedingly large estimated wtp values and provides the analyst with greater control in specifying and testing the distribution of wtp copyright 2008 oxford university press

partial coordination and mergers among quantity setting firms we analyze horizontal mergers in a collusive environment by using an infinitely repeated game where i a subset of collusive firms is exogenously given and ii partially collusive arrangements are allowed for we show that in our model there is no clear relation between the existence of mergers and full collusion at equilibrium however we demonstrate that the presence of mergers generally leads to a price increase also we show that cartel firms have less incentives to merge than firms in a cournot oligopoly and that collusion increases fringe firms incentives to merge 2007 elsevier b v all rights reserved jel classification l13 l40 l41

factors influencing willingness to pay for the energy star label abstract in the united states nearly 17 of greenhouse gas emissions come from residential energy use increases in energy efficiency for the residential sector can generate significant energy savings and emissions reductions consumer labels such as the us environmental protection agency s energy star promote conservation by providing consumers with information on energy usage for household appliances this study examines how the energy star label affects consumer preferences for refrigerators the results of an online survey of a national sample of adults suggest that consumers are on average willing to pay an extra 249 82 349 30 for a refrigerator that has been awarded the energy star label furthermore the results provide evidence that respondent willingness to pay was motivated by both private energy cost savings and public environmental benefits

willingness to pay lip service applying a neuroscience based method to wtp for green electricity abstract consumers willingness to pay wtp represents a central question for providers of renewable energy most studies on the subject have used contingent valuation and choice experiments however all empirical designs employed to date suffer from serious biases such as strategic behavior we introduce a novel neuroscience based approach to renewable energy related wtp research neuropricing which eliminates some of these biases we tested consumers wtp for two different green electricity products and found wtp for these products to be about 15 above that for a non green electricity tariff our results suggest that neuropricing is indeed able to eliminate strategic behavior moreover this approach allows for wtp studies with much smaller sample sizes than traditional methods require the neuroscience methodology can be used by researchers and marketers alike not only for testing the effects of product attributes on wtp but also for evaluating wtp effects of specific messages in marketing communications thus it may lead to a better understanding of consumer behavior and hence facilitate more successful marketing of renewable energy

wind hydro or mixed renewable energy source preference for electricity products when the share of renewable energy increases abstract while the share of renewable energy especially wind power increases in the energy mix the risk of temporary energy shortage increases as well thus it is important to understand consumers preference for the renewable energy towards the continuous growing renewable energy society we use a discrete choice experiment to infer consumers preferences when the share of renewable energy increases the study results indicate that consumers are generally willing to pay extra for an increasing share of renewable energy but the renewable energy should come from a mixture of renewable energy sources we also found that consumers prefer to trade with their current supplier rather than another well known supplier this study contributes to the energy portfolio theories and the theory of energy diversification in a consumer perspective the managerial implications of this study are also discussed

on the workings of a cartel evidence from the norwegian cement industry using the institutional set up of the norwegian cement industry in particular its sharing rule we are able to identify the workings of a cartel in some detail given data on prices production and exports we are able to identify marginal costs as well as the effectiveness of the cartel we compare our marginal cost estimates which are derived from an equilibrium condition to detailed cost accounting data and find that our estimate of marginal cost is very much in line with the data we then show that the cement cartel has been ineffective in the sense that the sharing rule induces overproduction and exporting below marginal costs in this sense it is consumers not firms that benefi tf rom the sharing rule we find that the ineffectiveness of the cartel is becoming so large that domestic welfare of a merger to monopoly would in fact be positive at around 1968 which is exactly when the merger actually took place however we also show that competition would have resulted in even higher welfare gains over the entire sample

ringleaders in larger number asymmetric cartels the concept of a cartel ringleader has specific legal meaning but has received relatively little attention in the economic literature of cartels this article draws on a sample of 89 european cartels to identify how often ringleaders exist who they are and what they do it argues that ringleaders are more likely where the traditional cartel problems are likely to be most acute i e with larger numbers of members exhibiting substantial size asymmetries this is confirmed for price fixing and bid rigging cartels and is especially pronounced where the ringleader displays aggressive as opposed to merely organisational behaviour

economic versus belief based models shedding light on the adoption of novel green technologies abstract understanding the determinants for the adoption of novel green consumer technologies is important to effectively foster their diffusion energy and environmental science literature often takes an approach based on economic variables such as objectively measureable household and technology characteristics increasingly also subjective variables based on personal belief are considered on the basis of a survey about the intention to adopt an exemplary novel green consumer technology intelligent thermostats we contribute to the clarification of the explanatory power of these two approaches we first compare the economic model to the belief based model and second investigate how beliefs about the green technology are influenced by personal environmental norms and innovativeness our evaluation shows that the belief based model explains considerably higher variance in the intention to adopt thereby the perceived hedonic satisfaction usefulness habit and facilitating conditions reveal as key determinants moreover environmental norms show lower impact than personal innovativeness in the discussion we consolidate these findings and point to the risk of omitted variable bias when selectively including belief based variables in adoption models our findings suggest that policies can effectively accelerate the early market diffusion of green consumer technologies by incentivizing retailers to introduce and market such technologies

what are retail investors risk return preferences towards renewable energy projects a choice experiment in germany citizens own nearly half the renewable energy generation capacity in germany and have been important drivers of the country s energy transition in contrast to citizens important role in financing renewable energies the energy policy and economics literature has traditionally focused on other investors such as incumbent energy firms to close this gap this paper reports on a large scale survey of 1 990 german retail investors conducting a choice experiment with the subset of 1 041 respondents who expressed an interest in investing in community renewable energy projects we present a unique dataset allowing for new insights in risk return expectations of retail investors we find that apart from return on investment respondents are particularly sensitive to the minimum holding period and the issuer of community renewable energy investment offerings a minimum holding period of 10 years implies a risk premium of 2 76 points a subsequent segmentation analysis shows that two groups of potential community renewable energy investors with different risk return expectations can be identified local patriots and yield investors in contrast to professional investors a majority of retail investors use simple decision rules such as calculating payback time or relying on their gut feeling when making investments

anti social welfare functions a reply to hansen et al we could reasonably expect society to give at least the same weight to the marginal utility of the poor as to the rich and to the marginal utility of the ill as compared to the healthy whilst hansen et al journal of health economics 2004 may be said to link cea and cba within a welfarist framework the assumptions they require are inconsistent with these types of ethical preferences thus the degree to which they employ a reasonable social welfare function is doubtful this paper argues that any link between cea and cba will occur not within a welfarist framework but instead within a non welfarist one in which it is unlikely that cba results could be easily transformed into cost effectiveness ratios

us consumers willingness to pay for green electricity abstract we analyze us consumers demand for environmental attributes of deregulated residential electricity services using results from a survey designed to elicit consumers willingness to pay for such attributes and using results from a hedonic analysis of actual price premiums charged for green electricity in several deregulated markets survey results suggest that many population segments are willing to pay for decreased air emissions even if there is no alteration in fuel source furthermore several groups are willing to pay significantly more when emissions reductions stem from increased reliance upon renewable fuels the hedonic analysis suggests that several product features not considered in the survey help explain real price premiums including fuel mix from newly created renewable generation capacity green e certification brand name and state of offer while survey and hedonic results are not easily compared due to limitations of the survey both point to similar values for key environmental attributes though the survey results are likely to overstate actual willingness to pay in sum the results suggest that consumer driven purchases can in part support the future of renewable generation capacity in the united states though reliance upon other policy alternatives may be needed if energy prices spike

what do customers want from improved residential electricity services evidence from a choice experiment abstract improvements in customer satisfaction as well as product service quality represent a common objective of all businesses and electricity services are no exception using choice experiments and a mixed logit model this study quantitatively analyzes customers preferences and their marginal willingness to pay for improved residential electricity services the study provides an ex ante evaluation of customers acceptance of hypothetical electricity services according to the results customers consider the electricity bill and the electricity mix as the two most important attributes when choosing their electricity services customers are willing to pay 2 2 more in the average electricity bill an additional monthly electricity bill of krw 1 064 usd 0 96 for a significant increase in the share of renewable energy which is far less than the actual cost of achieving this renewable target therefore it is better to maintain the current electricity mix in principle and the renewable share should be gradually expanded instead of making a sudden change in the electricity mix in addition customers are willing to pay krw 6 793 usd 6 15 more to reduce blackouts once in a year and krw 64 year usd 0 06 year to reduce a minute of each blackout

random preferences towards bioenergy environmental externalities a case study of woody biomass based electricity in the southern united states article i nfo this paper contrasts alternate methodological approaches of investigating public preferences the random parameter logit rpl where tastes and preferences of respondents are assumed to be heterogeneous and the conditional logit cl approach where tastes and preferences remain fixed for individuals we conducted a choice experiment to assess preferences for woody biomass based electricity in arkansas florida and virginia reduction of co2 emissions and improvement of forest habitat by decreasing risk of wildfires and pest outbreaks were presented to respondents as attributes of using green electricity the results indicate that heterogeneous preferences might be a better fit for assessing preferences for green electricity all levels of both attributes were positive contributors to welfare but they were no statistically significant respondents expressed a positive mean marginal willingness to pay wtp for each attribute level the total wtp for green electricity per kilowatt hour was 0 049 kwh or 40 5 per capita year 1 when converted into future total annual expenditures

designing discrete choice experiments do optimal designs come at a price in discrete choice experiments design decisions are crucial for determining data quality and costs while high statistical efficiency designs are desirable they may come at a price if they increase the cognitive burden for respondents we address this problem by designing 44 experiments that systematically vary numbers of attributes and attribute level differences our results for two product categories suggest that respondents systematically are less consistent in answering choice questions as statistical efficiency increases this relationship holds regardless of the number of attributes and is statistically significant even if one accommodates preference heterogeneity implications for practice and future research are discussed

on the economic foundations of cea ladies and gentlemen take your positions abstract there are still many ongoing debates about several aspects of the methodology of economic evaluations of health care interventions some of the disparities in recommendations on methodological issues may be traced back to different viewpoints on cost effectiveness analysis cea in general two important views are the welfarist approach which aims at embedding cea into traditional welfare economics and the decision maker s approach which takes a broader and more pragmatic view on cea the focus in welfarism may be on utility while that of the decision maker s approach may be considered to be on health in this paper it is examined how these two views differ and how these differences may subsequently lead to debates in methodological areas it is indicated that embedding the practical operationalisation of cea in welfare economics seems impossible in a strict welfarist approach it is necessary to view qalys as being utilities although one may question whether such an approach to qalys is appropriate also equity considerations may play an important role in cost effectiveness analysis and these should preferably be taken into account in a way that reflects societal attitudes towards an equitable distribution of health care these equity considerations may not always be directly related to utility or efficiency furthermore both camps may prefer different methods for cost measurement in areas such as productivity costs and informal care a better recognition of the contents and origins of controversies and disputes may enhance the clarity of discussions

wtp and qaly based approaches to valuing health for policy common ground and disputed territory this paper discusses links between two approaches to the value of health the willingness to pay approach of environmental economics and the quality adjusted life year approach of health economics the approaches are used in cost benefit and cost effectiveness analyses of health interventions despite fundamental differences in the decision contexts and conceptual foundations of the two approaches in current practice they are likely to lead to similar policy decisions the paper also shows how research on the quality adjusted life year qaly can be used to fill in gaps in the willingness to pay literature the paper sketches a simple model that shows how to qaly fy the value of a statistical life i e how to combine qaly estimates with estimates of the value of a statistical life to estimate willingness to pay for morbidity risks

inner conflict between nuclear power generation and electricity rates a japanese case study abstract since the march 11 earthquake japanese households have been facing a trade off problem between decreasing dependency on nuclear power generation and avoiding an increase in electricity rates we analyze this inner conflict quantitatively adopting two economic psychological approaches first we note that the trade off causes cognitive dissonance after making a choice that results in a wider desirability gap between the chosen and rejected alternatives second the consumer surplus improves by 11 2 with a no choice option for suspending judgment in the presence of cognitive dissonance third individual characteristics such as gender and annual household income are significantly correlated with both cognitive dissonance and a preference for the no choice option

a review of international green power markets recent experience trends and market drivers green power marketing the act of differentially selling electricity generated wholly or in part from renewable sources has emerged in more than a dozen countries around the world almost two million customers worldwide buy green power today this paper reviews green power marketing activity in australia canada japan the us and in a number of countries in europe to gain an understanding of consumer demand for electricity generated from renewable sources it also examines key factors that influence market penetration of green power products such as product designs pricing incentives marketing strategies policies and product certification 2002 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

on the possibility of a bridge between cba and cea comments on a paper by dolan and edlin in a recent work by dolan and edlin it is concluded that no link can be established between cost benefit analysis cba and cost effectiveness analysis cea however the conclusion seems to depend rather heavily on what is understood by a link between cba and cea as well as on the exact meaning of the latter two terms we argue that there is at least one approach to cba and cea in which the two are very intimately linked on the other hand the limitations in the access to preference information has consequences for the kind of questions that can be meaningfully addressed in both cba and cea

consumer preferences for electricity tariffs does proximity matter abstract the introduction of renewable energy sources fosters the transformation to an energy system with distributed generation this alters the relation between consumers and power generation sites as generation and consumption spatially converge it allows for new configurations within the energy sector and provides opportunities for marketing regional energy we empirically investigate consumer preferences for electricity generation in proximity to end users focusing on the proximity of generation and providers and present representative data for germany in a discrete choice experiment a sample of 780 consumer households and 173 adopters of a renewable energy system prosumers chose from a range of different electricity tariffs we estimate the willingness to pay for the following attributes shares of regional generation power providers and electricity mixes we find evidence in favor of regional production but in spite of positive attitudes towards local generation from renewable sources willingness to pay is not responsive to higher shares of regional generation in addition a preference for regional providers exists the results show that renewable energy mixes are preferred particularly a solar and hydro mix adopters state slightly more distinct preferences as compared to consumer households thus we find there is potential for business models offering regionally generated electricity

is it really possible to build a bridge between cost benefit analysis and cost effectiveness analysis cost benefit analysis cba is a recognised as the economic evaluation technique that accords most with the underlying principles of standard welfare economic theory however due to problems associated with the technique economists evaluating resources allocation decisions in health care have most often used cost effective analysis cea in which health benefits are expressed in non monetary units as a result attempts have been made to build a welfare economic bridge between cost benefit analysis cba and cost effectiveness analysis cea in this paper we develops these attempts and finds that while assumptions can be made to facilitate a constant willingness to pay per unit of health outcome these restrictions are highly unrealistic we develop an impossibility theorem that shows it is not possible to link cba and cea if i the axioms of expected utility theory hold ii the quality adjusted life year qaly model is valid in a welfare economic sense and iii illness affects the ability to enjoy consumption we conclude that within a welfare economic framework it would be unwise to rely on a link between cba and cea in economic evaluations

responding to policy change new business models for renewable energy cooperatives barriers perceived by cooperatives members abstract renewable energy cooperatives recs in germany have received considerable attention in recent years their number having risen to nearly a thousand since 2004 this growth has resulted largely from germany s feed in tariff system recent changes in this policy however have made the previous rec business models mostly unprofitable so recs are looking for new business models our study aims at identifying those new models and characterizing the implementation barriers recs face to this end we interviewed rec members and management and observed rec annual general meetings we found three significant barriers first risk aversion on the part of both members and management second concerns about the environmental impacts or the ethics of certain models that while legal are not felt to align with the intentions of lawmakers finally the lack of competencies and time of the mostly unsalaried rec management these barriers could put the future of recs at risk and so threaten the contributions recs make to the german energy transition professionalization partnerships and other strategies can help mitigate this risk if recs are to continue to play an important role in the energy transition policy makers would be wise to consider measures to support their continued growth

morphological analysis of energy services paving the way to quality differentiation in the power sector abstract the activation of the still predominantly passive demand side is necessary to further guarantee a stable power system in the short term and ensure capacity adequacy in the long run a system with a high share of generators with nearly no marginal costs requires new services that facilitate transmitting the right economic signals to the system stakeholders to this end we refine the notion of energy services and propose a framework to systematically design quality differentiated energy services for consumers this approach facilitates a value based economic assessment of energy services that deviates from the marginal cost paradigm we further illustrate pricing options for these new energy service products and outline infrastructural needs and additional use case specific product properties moreover we discuss how the morphological approach can be formalised using a mathematical programming formulation and introduce a complexity measure that facilitates assessing potential adoption obstacles for end consumers additionally we illustrate the practical applicability of these findings by using a prototypical implementation of a decision support system to foster differentiated energy services we recommend a more lenient regulatory regime lowering the barriers for new market entrants

participation games and international environmental agreements a non parametric model abstract we examine the size of stable coalitions in a participation game that has been used to model international environmental agreements cartel formation rd based on these examples a consensus has emerged that in this kind of game the equilibrium coalition size is small except possibly when the potential benefits of cooperation are also small in this paper we develop a non parametric approach to the problem and demonstrate that the conventional wisdom is not robust in a general setting we identify conditions under which the equilibrium coalition size can be large even when potential gains are large contrary to previously examined leading special cases we show that reductions in marginal abatement costs in an international environmental game can increase equilibrium membership and we provide a measure of the smallest reduction in costs needed to support a coalition of arbitrary size

whatever the customer wants the customer gets exploring the gap between consumer preferences and default electricity products in germany abstract in liberalized electricity markets residential customers can choose their preferred provider and select among a variety of different electricity products including green power options successful product design and marketing strategies for green electricity may provide electricity providers with a competitive advantage while at the same time contributing to energy policy objectives this requires however a thorough understanding of customer preferences we investigate the relative importance of different product attributes in creating customer value and find that price and electricity mix are the two most important attributes the german electricity customers we surveyed in 2009 expressed an implicit willingness to pay a premium of about 16 for electricity from renewable sources we conclude that consumers are willing to pay a significant price premium for an upgrade from the current default electricity mix in germany to a more environmentally friendly default electricity mix and discuss implications for marketing strategy and energy policy our findings are based on a dataset of 4968 experimental choices made by 414 german residential consumers collected in a stated preference survey

coalition proof nash equilibria ii applications abstract in bernheim peleg and whinston coalition proof equilibria i concepts j econ theory 42 1987 1 12 we proposed the notion of coalition proof nash equilibrium and perfectly coalition proof nash equilibrium as solution concepts for strategic environments in which players can freely discuss their strategies but cannot make binding commitments this paper undertakes applications to several economic problems including the behavior of cournot oligopolists oligopolistic entry deterrence cooperation in finite horizon games and social choice rule implementation

what makes people seal the green power deal customer segmentation based on choice experiment in germany abstract consumers have the power to contribute to creating a more sustainable future by subscribing to green electricity tariffs in order to reach consumers beyond the eco niche identifying the drivers that positively influence the adoption of green electricity is of fundamental importance this paper examines various factors that help to explain the extent to which green electricity subscribers differ from those that display strong preferences towards green electricity but have not yet walked the talk by making use of a latent class segmentation analysis based on choice based conjoint data this paper identifies three groups of potential green electricity adopters with varying degrees of preference for renewable energy findings indicate that socio demographic factors play a marginal role in explaining the differences between green electricity subscribers and potential adopters with the exception that actual adopters tend to be better educated analysis of psychographic and behavioral features reveals that adopters tend to perceive consumer effectiveness to be higher place more trust in science tend to estimate lower prices for green electricity tariffs are willing to pay significantly more for other eco friendly products and are more likely to have recently changed their electricity contract than non adopters policy recommendations associated with these findings are provided

green power voluntary purchases price elasticity and policy analysis abstract green power schemes offer electricity from renewable energy sources to customers for a higher price than ordinary electricity this study examines the demand characteristics of green power in australia and policies which could increase its sales a sample of 250 pooled time series and cross sectional observations was used to estimate a statistically significant elasticity of demand for green power with respect to price of 0 96 with a 95 confidence interval of 68 the wide variation in market penetration between jurisdictions and between countries for green power and the low awareness of green power found by surveys indicate that green power sales could be increased by appropriate marketing and government policies the most cost effective means to increase sales was found to be advertising campaigns although only one australian example was found in the state of victoria in 2005 it was also found that full tax deductibility of the green power premium to residential customers exemption from the goods and services tax and a tax rebate for green power are all probably less cost effective for promoting sales than direct government purchase of green power in terms of cost per unit of increased sales