We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the formation of energy conservation routines. To do so, we use data from two nationwide surveys of German households, conducted before and during the pandemic. Across the two survey waves, we document a significant increase in the likelihood...

In the context of tight public budgets and increasingly ambitious climate objectives, the performance of the support policies for residential energy conservation works needs to be assessed. We compare the performance of four types of support schemes in France, namely the income tax credit, a...

We analyze the drivers and barriers that influence investments increasing the energy efficiency of firms' production processes or buildings in the German manufacturing sector based on microdata. In particular, we shed light on the relationship between financial barriers (e. g. credit...

Energy efficiency regulation is an important driver for innovations in environmental technologies. Improvements of energy efficiency do not only contribute to reach environmental policy targets, they can be furthermore economically profitable. E.g. private households can reduce their costs in...

When consuming goods provided by public utilities, such as telecommunication, water, gas or electricity, the predominant payment scheme is pay-later billing. This paper identifies one potential consequence of pay-later schemes, present-biased overconsumption of the respective good, and tests...

Non-pecuniary incentives motivated by insights from psychology (“nudges”) have been shown to be effective tools to change behavior in a variety of fields. An often unanswered question relevant for public policy is whether these promising interventions can be scaled up. In cooperation with a...

In two empirical surveys in Germany the link between the information respondents have about climate change and their risk perception of the phenomenon was analysed. We found that a better understanding of the effects of climate change might lead to a decrease of the perceived hazard. In...

Adaptation to climate change is becoming increasingly important in the political and scientific debate. The reason for this is that climate change impacts are visible already today and will intensify in the next decades. Furthermore, the prospects for an effective international agreement on...

We analyze the productivity effects of environmental (green) investment as well as of environmental expenditures and energy expenditures. For this purpose, we follow a production function approach where we account for these investment and expenditure categories as inputs. Based on a panel...

The Climate action and renewable energy package proposed by the European Commission in the beginning of 2008 suggests auctioning as basic principle for allocation for the upcoming third trading phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme that runs from 2013 to 2020. Overall, it is estimated that at...