This paper investigates key drivers and barriers behind homeowners’ decisions to switch from a fossil fuel (i.e. oil or gas boiler) to a renewable residential heating system (RHS). For this purpose, we draw on data from a 2010 questionnaire survey among owners of existing 1-family or 2-family...

This paper examines the direct and moderating effects of pro-environmental consumption on subjective well-being and tests whether this type of decision could be explained as a utility-maximizing choice under welfare economics, or it is subject to systematic deviations using three waves (2014,...

Governments all over the world have invested tens of billions of dollars in car scrappage programs to fuel the economy in 2009. We investigate the German case using a unique micro transaction dataset covering the years 2007 to 2010. Our focus is on the incidence of the subsidy, i.e., we ask how...

When asking for donations, charitable organizations often use suggestions concerning the amount of potential contributions. In our randomized field experiment, opera visitors received solicitation letters asking to support a social youth project organized by the opera house. The three different...

Die Inflationsrate hat im Euroraum zuletzt einen Höchstwert erreicht. Neben der amtlich gemessenen Inflationsrate wurde die subjektive Inflationswahrnehmung hingegen wenig beachtet. Dieser Beitrag füllt diese Lücke, indem auf Grundlage einer repräsentativen Befragung die subjektive...

The literature on subjective well-being (SWB) and the environment has found robust evidence of positive net marginal SWB from pro-environmental behavior (PEB), that is, positive marginal SWB net of the associated costs in terms of money, time and effort (Finding 1). Accordingly, people could...

Germans are still very fond of using cash. Of all direct payment transactions, cash accounts for an astounding 82% in terms of number, and for 58% in terms of value. With a new and unique dataset that combines transaction information with survey data on payment behaviour of German consumers, we...

Die Untersuchung analysiert das Sparverhalten der über 30- bis unter 50jährigen Personen bzw. Haushalte mit Haushaltsvorständen in dieser Altersgruppe in Reaktion auf erhaltene Erbschaften bzw. Transfers zu Lebzeiten. Zugrunde liegen aktuelle Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels. Mittels...

In several studies, hedonic methods have been used successfully for the ex post assessment of the accuracy of inflation measurement. Most of those studies relate to high-tech products, with respect to which traditional methods of compiling price indices often fail. We apply hedonic methods to...

Unconventional fiscal policy uses announcements of future increases in consumption taxes to generate inflation expectations and accelerate consumption expenditure. It is budget neutral and time consistent. We exploit a unique natural experiment for an empirical test of the effectiveness of...