A growing number of policies and programs aim to increase investment in energy efficiency, because conventional wisdom suggests that people fail to take-up these investments even though they have positive private returns and generate environmental benefits. Many explanations for this energy...

In the United States, consumers invest billions of dollars annually in energy efficiency, often on the assumption that these investments will pay for themselves via future energy cost reductions. We study energy efficiency upgrades in K-12 schools in California. We develop and implement a novel...

Conventional wisdom suggests that energy efficiency (EE) policies are beneficial because they induce investments that pay for themselves and lead to emissions reductions. However, this belief is primarily based on projections from engineering models. This paper reports on the results of an...

We document very low take‐up of an energy efficiency program that is widely believed to be privately beneficial. Program participants receive a substantial home “weatherization” retrofit; all installation and equipment costs are covered by the program. Less than one percent of...