A growing literature has shown that behavioral biases influence consumer choices. Such so-called internalities are ubiquitous in many settings, including energy efficiency investments and the consumption of sin goods, such as cigarettes and sugar. In this paper, we use a mechanism design...

We combine two extensions of the differentiated duopoly model of Dixit (1979), namely Caminal and Vives (1996) and Brander and Spencer (2015a,b), to analyze the effect of consumer learning on firms' incentives to differentiate their products in models of Cournot and Bertrand competition....

Hotelling’s famous Principle of Minimum Differentiation suggests that two firms engaging in spatial competition will decide to locate at the same place. Interpreting spatial competition as modeling product differentiation, firms will thus offer products that are not differentiated and equally...

Hotelling’s famous ‘Principle of Minimum Differentiation’ asserts that two firms engaging in spatial competition with fixed prices will decide to locate at the same place. Interpreting spatial competition as modeling product differentiation, firms will thus offer products that are not...

Energy labels have been introduced in many countries to increase consumers' attention to energy use in purchase decisions of durables. In a discrete-choice experiment among about 5,000 households, we implement randomized information treatments to explore how energy labels influence purchasing...

In many countries, the transition process towards a low-carbon economy has been associated with increasing electricity prices. Microeconometric evaluations of the causal impact of electricity price changes on plant-level outcomes are rare, though. By exploiting local randomization induced by...

[Kurzzusammenfassung] Zahlreiche Studien haben nachgewiesen, dass Energiesparbriefe in den USA eine kosteneffektive nicht-preisbasierte Intervention zur Reduktion von Haushaltsstromverbräuchen darstellen. Basierend auf diesen Erkenntnissen geht dieses Forschungsprojekt der Frage nach, ob die...

Klimapolitik erhitzt die Gemüter. Neben der derzeit breit diskutierten einheitlichen CO2-Steuer gibt es eine Vielzahl an Maßnahmen, auf die es sich lohnt, einen genaueren Blick zu werfen. Das RWI hat die Wirksamkeit und Effizienz ausgewählter Instrumente der Klimapolitik evaluiert und die...

Many countries have introduced Energy Performance Certificates to mitigate the information asymmetry with respect to the thermal quality of houses. Drawing on a stylized theoretical model that is coupled with comprehensive data on real estate advertisements in the German housing market, this...

The seminal studies by Allcott and Mullainathan (2010), Allcott (2011), and Allcott and Rogers (2014) suggest that social comparison-based home energy reports (HER) are a cost-effective non-price intervention to stimulate energy conservation. The present paper demonstrates the context-dependency...