Economic analysis on consumer behavior for energy saving home devices <Articles>

To reduce greenhouse gas emission, governments have been implementing various types of environmental policies. Among them, it is in the spotlight to encourage households to fix energy saving "equipments" such as solar panel generations and insulators on their homes. In general, they are more expensive than energy saving home "appliances" such as televisions and air conditioners. Though there are many studies examining home "appliances" purchasing behavior, it is not clear what factors have influence on purchasing energy saving "equipments". Therefore, conducting the Japanese household survey concerning possession situations of 9 types of energy saving "equipments", this paper examines their purchasing determinants. Our results show that households with high salary are likely to purchase solar panel generation systems, high efficient water heaters and insulators. On the contrary, it is revealed that income does not affect the behaviors to double grazing, double sash and solar water heater. In addition, it is also confirmed that the tendencies to purchase them are different among regions. Therefore, when governments subsidize energy saving "equipments", they should pay much attention the income effects and regional characteristics such as temperature and day length