The effectiveness of home energy audits: A case study of Jackson,Wyoming

This study examines the factors that influence households to adopt modifications recommended by home energy audits and whether these audits lead to significant reductions in electricity use. Household decisions after the audits are recorded along with the corresponding recommended modifications and the offers for co-funding. A discrete choice model of the household decision after the audit is estimated. The results indicate that the potential improvement in heating efficiency from the proposed modifications increase the probability of implementing conservation measures. Co-funding offers also significantly raise the odds of accepting the modifications but are relatively less important than anticipated efficiency improvements. Several approaches are used to determine whether and how much energy is saved after the audits. Electricity demand models are estimated using data two years before and after each household audit. For households who decide to modify their houses after the audit, monthly average electricity use per square foot decreases 7%. While there is an estimated 2% reduction in electricity use attributed to the audit by households who decided not to adopt the proposed modifications, this reduction is not statistically significant, casting doubt on the presence of modifications in behavior from the audit information itself. For all households audited, the results from the electricity demand models suggest that the LVE home energy audit program reduced household electricity use 4.7%. In contrast, a differences-in-differences approach using synthetic control groups based upon a smaller but still sizeable sample of 2000 observations finds that home energy audits reduce household electricity use by more than 10%. Overall, these findings suggest that home audits result in modest but significant reductions in energy use and that co-funding encourages investments that otherwise may not be privately optimal.     

THE IMPACT OF LOW‐INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM PARTICIPATION ON HOUSEHOLD ENERGY INSECURITY

The impact of the low‐income home energy assistance program (LIHEAP), the single largest energy assistance program available to poor households in the United States has received little rigorous attention. If LIHEAP participation significantly improves low‐income household energy security, funding cuts or eliminating the program could negatively impact the poor. This article empirically estimates the impact of LIHEAP on household energy security. The results indicate participation in LIHEAP significantly increases energy security in low‐income households. Simulations suggest that elimination of the current household energy‐assistance safety net will decrease the number of low‐income energy secure households by over 17%. (JEL I38, Q48)     

CONSERVED ENERGY SUPPLY CURVES FOR U.S. BUILDINGS

Comparison of nine conservation supply curves for electricity shows that fully implementing a series of energy efficiency measures will result in annual saving of 734 billion kWh (BkWh). This is 45 percent of 1989 U.S. building sector electricity use of 1627 BkWh and represents a $29 billion saving. When translated to units of conserved carbon dioxide (CC CO₂), this annual saving is 514 megatonnes, which is 10 percent of the total 1989 U.S. carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from all sources. Implementing additional fuel efficiency measures would result in further potential saving of 5·2 quads of fuel (natural gas and oil) per year, or another 300 megatonnes of CO₂, at a net savings of $20 billion. Fuel switching (replacing electric resistance heat with on-site natural gas combustion) would produce annual saving of another 74 megatonnes of CO₂ at a net saving of $6·8 billion. Thus, total CO₂ saving from these combined efficiency measures are 890 megatonnes at a net saving of $56 billion per year.     

The behavioral response to voluntary provision of an environmental public good: Evidence from residential electricity demand

This paper develops a theory of voluntary provision of a public good in which a household's decision to engage in a form of environmentally friendly behavior is based on the desire to offset another behavior that is environmentally harmful. The model generates predictions about (1) participation in a green-electricity program at the extensive and intensive margins, and (2) changes in electricity consumption in response to participation. We test the theory using billing data for participants and nonparticipants in a green-electricity program in Memphis, Tennessee. High-consumption households are more likely to participate, and they participate at higher levels. In terms of a behavioral response, households participating above the minimum threshold level do not change electricity consumption, but those participating at the minimum threshold increase electricity consumption 2.5 percent after enrolling in the program. The result is based on identification strategies that exploit before–after differences between participants and nonparticipants, and differences in the timing of enrollment among participants only. Despite the increase in electricity demand upon the purchase of green electricity for the households with a “buy-in” mentality, the net effect for the buy-in households is a reduction in pollution emissions, as the behavioral response is not large enough to offset the environmental benefit of the green-electricity purchase.     

HOUSING DECISION WITH DIVORCE RISK

We build a life‐cycle model of housing decisions under divorce risk that predicts that the recent increase in divorce rates leads to reduced homeownership rates. The risk of a divorce triggers a precautionary‐savings motive. However, this motive is weaker when individuals can invest in owner‐occupied homes because homeowners' higher savings partially substitute for precautionary savings. When young, the larger asset accumulation due to divorce‐risk‐induced precautionary savings enables households to buy homes earlier, whereas the presence of transaction costs leads to reduced homeownership for middle‐aged and older households when divorce risk goes up.     

EASY MONEY OR HARD TIMES? HEALTH AND 401(k) LOANS

Rising health care costs and declining personal savings rates are nearly synonymous with household medical debt. For some, defined contribution (DC) retirement savings plans provide a ready source of funds to meet these medical debts. We examine whether health status and health insurance coverage predict the likelihood of having a DC loan using data from the Federal Reserve's triennial Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) from 1989 to 2007. We find that poor health raises the likelihood that a household will borrow from their DC plans, even controlling for other forms of debt, access to credit, and whether households are covered by health insurance. Our estimates of the amount of the DC loan, taking selection effects into account, indicate that DC loan amounts are also influenced by health status; those with poor health borrow more from their DC plans. Apart from health status, once a household decides to borrow from their retirement funds, race and education also influence how much to borrow. We argue that public policy can improve the long‐term financial retirement security of households by offering more opportunities to save for medical emergencies, while cautiously maintaining the opportunity to borrow from DC plans. (JEL D12, D14, D91)     

INCOME,CONSUMPTION AND SAVING IN URBAN AND RURAL INDIA*

The main purpose of the study is to determine the savings potential of urban and rural households in India and in the process determine the possible savings and consumption functions separately for urban and rural areas. Four different possible functions have been used for determining the savings behaviour of the households both at the aggregate level and at the per capita level. The rural households, according to the results, have an extremely low rate of saving with income elasticity of saving of less than unity. For the urban households on the other hand, the income elasticity of saving is high enough to suggest the possibilities of considerably high savings potential. To understand the consumption behaviour of these households, the long-run and the short-run marginal propensities to consume and the marginal propensities to consume out of‘permanent’ or ‘normal’ income and ‘transitory’ income have been worked out. For the urban sector none of these give encouraging enough results and the analysis has been extended to examine whether other factors like prices and household assets are of any significance. Whereas for the rural sector, Milton Friedman's theory of ‘permanent’ or ‘normal’ income is somewhat substantiated, other factors like ‘transitory’ income, prices and assets appear to inthence urban consumption behaviour though no single one of them substantially enough. A negligible effect of ‘permanent’ income on urban consumption behaviour is, on the other hand, very clearly suggested by the results. Household consumption and savings have next been projected using the above results to determine the possible levels for the next three years. The results suggest that the rate of domestic savings likely to be achieved by the end of the Third Five Year Plan (1965–66) falls short of the targets laid down.     

The impact of mortgage interest-rate subsidies on household borrowing

The responsiveness of household borrowing to changes in the interest rate is a crucial parameter for assessing public policies aimed at promoting saving. We estimate the effect on household borrowing of a reform of a program that subsidized interest rates on mortgages signed by medium- and low-income households. The reform established a ceiling in the price of the house that could be financed with the program. First, we use triple difference estimators exploiting the fact that the reform should affect most the borrowing behavior of eligible individuals living in high-price areas, and estimate that the elasticity of the probability getting a loan to the interest rate lies between − 2.8 and − 1.3. Second, we document that after the reform, the distribution of loan sizes became more concentrated at the discontinuity point of the budget constraint of eligible individuals. Both findings are consistent with a negative response of household borrowing to increases in interest rates.     

Consumption,habit formation,and savings: Evidence from a rural household panel survey

Protecting consumption from the effects of uninsured risk is vital for rural farming households, who tend to be poor and live close to subsistence level. Income uncertainty and habit formation play important roles in the consumption and savings. Variability in weather conditions has a strong linkage with variability in agricultural income in developing countries. This study analyzes consumption and saving decisions of rural farm households in India. Using household panel data for 4 years, we estimated consumption equation accounting for habit formation under income uncertainty. Our findings suggest an evidence for habit formation among rural households. Additionally, we found that both annual and seasonal weather risks significantly influence savings among rural households. Findings from this study also suggest a robust and vibrant farm economy and that the nonfarm economy could contribute to the economic well‐being of rural farming households.     

Heterogeneity in the Effect of Home Energy Audits: Theory and Evidence

A longstanding question in the study of energy demand concerns the role of information as a determinant of home efficiency improvements. Although the provision of information via energy audits is frequently asserted to be an effective means for governments to encourage the implementation of efficiency-enhancing renovations, empirical support for this assertion is tenuous at best. Apart from endogeneity issues with respect to receiving an audit, two other factors have complicated attempts to measure their effect: First, the nature of the information provided by the audit is typically unobserved, and, second, the response to this information may vary over households. Using household data from Germany, we address both sources of heterogeneity by estimating a random-parameter model of four retrofitting alternatives. In addition to confirming the importance of costs and savings as determinants of renovation choices, our results suggest that the effects of consultancy vary substantially across households, with some households responding negatively to the provision of information.     

The Earned Income Tax Credit: Targeting the poor but crowding out wealth

This paper quantifies the individual, aggregate and welfare effects of the US Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). In particular, we analyze the labour supply and saving responses to changes in tax credit generosity and their implications for prices and welfare. Our results show that the EITC is a subsidy on labour income and a tax on savings. An increase in EITC generosity raises labour force participation, reduces savings for many and provides insurance to working poor households. The EITC reduces earnings inequality but increases the skill premium and wealth inequality. A 10% increase in tax credit generosity increases welfare by 0.31% and benefits the majority of the population.     

The surprisingly low importance of income uncertainty for precaution

While it is common to use income uncertainty to explain household saving decisions, there is much disagreement about the importance of precautionary saving. This paper suggests that income uncertainty is not an important motive for saving, although households do have other precautionary reasons to save. Using a question from the Survey of Consumer Finances that asks how much households want for precautionary purposes, this paper shows that expressed household preferences, and liquid savings, are much lower than predicted by standard modeling assumptions. Households rarely list unemployment as a reason to save. Perceived income uncertainty does not affect liquid savings or precautionary preferences. Neither does being in an occupation with higher income volatility. Instead, households seem very concerned with expenditure shocks.     

The continuous treatment effect of an antipoverty program on children's educational attainment: Colombia's Familias en Accion

Educational attainment is an important element in the formation of human capital. Although many developing countries have made strong efforts to expand the coverage of education services, children in poor households still struggle to attend school on a regular basis. Human development conditional cash transfers (known as CCT s) have emerged in response to this situation in developing countries. While the effects of the CCT s are well known and widely documented, their effects in relation to educational attainment and school participation are still unclear. This paper looks empirically into the continuous treatment effects of participation length in Familias en Accion , a CCT program in Colombia. The paper focuses on the continuous treatment effects on school registration and educational attainment of participants in the program. Although initial results show a fuzzy relationship between the program outcomes and the participation length, the empirical results confirm the fact that a longer exposure to the antipoverty program led to higher school registration rates, accumulation of years of education, and lower child labor participation levels.     

Household’s optimal mortgage and unsecured loan default decision

How do households make optimal borrowing and default decisions when they have the option to borrow in multiple ways? In this paper, I analyze households’ optimal mortgage and unsecured loan borrowing and default decisions in the context of the recent recession. I model households as able to default on mortgage debt to walk away from capital losses, at the price of foreclosure. However, a household can also default on unsecured debt to maintain its home, in exchange for a longer exclusion from credit markets following default. Depending on the costs of each alternative, financially constrained households exhibit heterogeneity in optimal default decisions.Next, I analyze how mortgage loan modification policies, after a sudden drop in house prices, affect household choices in the mortgage and unsecured loan markets. The quantitative exercise shows that the government-driven mortgage modification program, initiated in 2009, reduces the mortgage default rate by 0.27% points. However, this increases the unsecured loan charge-off rate by 0.66% points.     

Housing Market and Current Account Imbalances in the International Economy

This paper presents a two‐sector, two‐country model showing that inflation in the housing market, a low personal savings rate, and a construction investment boom can contribute to a large current account deficit. In the model, demand by a group of households in the domestic country is constrained by the availability of collateral. This implies more procyclical debt capacity because constrained households can borrow against the increase in the value of their houses during an expansion. A higher degree of financial liberalization and development helps constrained households reach higher loan‐to‐value ratios, thus relaxing their borrowing constraints. The resulting higher net worth and lower need for savings imply a worsening current account.     

Do small pecuniary incentives motivate residential peak energy reductions? Experimental evidence

This article evaluates demand-side interventions aimed at reducing residential consumption during the peak energy periods. The interventions were applied to a sample of high-income households and included a set of text message reminders advising participants to reduce electricity use during peak hours. One group of participants received accompanying intra-day increases in peak-hour kWh rates, while another group of participants did not receive any price incentives. We find that intra-day price increases, though small in absolute magnitude, produced significant reductions in peak energy use. Reductions in use, as compared to a control group, were significantly higher among the pricing group compared to the group only receiving text messages, suggesting that pricing played a central role in influencing behaviour. Our results contribute to ongoing policy discussion about the effect of dynamic pricing on consumer energy demand.     

WILLINGNESS TO PAY IN CHINA'S NEW COOPERATIVE MEDICAL SYSTEM

Household survey data from China is used to analyze the determinants of households' willingness to pay to participate in the New Cooperative Medical System (NCMS). Wealthier households, households with at least one member who has been treated as an inpatient, and households in counties where NCMS is already established are willing to pay more for the program. Households who carry other forms of insurance, however, have a lower willingness to pay for the NCMS. We also find that the participation fee could be increased substantially to increase the size of the risk pool while scarcely affecting participation rates. (JEL I1, O1, D1)     

An overlooked explanation of the declining saving rate

With a socioeconomic model of the determinants of savings that takes into account variables reflecting the abrupt changes in the divorce rate that occurred during the 1970s and the 1980s in the U.S., the increase in women's participation in the labour force, and their greater investrnent in education, we explain part of the measured decline in the saving rate. The uncertainty generated by the increased likelihood of divorces encourages households and women, in particular, to substitute human capital to financial or physical capital for precautionary savings.The authors thank Anna J. Schwartz and Pierre Perron for helpful suggestions and Anne-Marie El Hakim for her dedicated assistance on this project. The comments of the editor and of an anonymous referee contributed to improve the final version of the paper. The project was financed, in part, by a grant of the Quebec FCAR Fund.     

ENERGY INTENSITY IMPROVEMENTS IN STEEL MINIMILLS

Over the past 20 years, U.S. steel manufacturing has experienced an episode of creative destruction. Iron-ore based plants closed, and new electric arc furnace (EAF) plants–the "minimills"–opened. The steel industry is an energy intensive segment of manufacturing, and the changeover causes major change in energy use. The analysis here links a plant-level database from the Bureau of the Census with publicly available sources and obtains measures of the best practice energy use in minimills. The analysis examines how technical efficiency, vintage, and capacity utilization affect plant-level electricity use per ton of steel. This measure of electricity use gives a plant's "energy intensity." Plants in the sample keep operating even during deep recessions, suggesting that energy, e.g., BTU, taxes may fall short of the fullest potential for reducing energy use. During recession, plants actually may continue to operate at lower output rates and higher energy intensities rather than close down. Substantial potential exists for energy improvements of as much as 1 billion kWh per year. New facilities exhibit energy intensity improvement of 6.2 kWh/ton per year. This finding is consistent with engineering estimates. Realizing this potential among all plants would require policies that assist capital turnover.     

我国居民储蓄利率敏感性的实证研究

首先对利率变动与居民储蓄的关系进行理论分析,然后选取2000年1月到2010年12月的数据,利用VAR模型,就我国居民储蓄利率敏感性问题进行了实证研究,实证结果表明我国的居民储蓄和存贷利率之间的变化存在长期稳定的关系,但是居民储蓄对存贷利率变化并不敏感。居民储蓄利率敏感性差的根本原因是政府行为、企业行为、银行行为和居民行为还不符合市场经济的要求。最后对提高储蓄利率敏感性提出政策建议。