German car buyers' willingness to pay to reduce CO2 emissions

Motorised individual transport strongly contributes to global CO2 emissions, due to its intensive usage of fossil fuels. Current political efforts addressing this issue (i.e. emission performance standards in the EU) are directed towards car manufacturers. This paper focuses on the demand side. It examines whether CO2 emissions per kilometre is a relevant attribute in car choices. Based on a stated preference experiment among potential car buyers from Germany, different mixed logit specifications are estimated. In addition, distributions of willingness to pay measures for an abatement of CO2 emissions are obtained. The results suggest that the emissions performance of a car matters substantially, but its consideration varies heavily across the sampled population. In particular, some evidence on gender, age and education effects on climate concerns is provided. --CO2 emissions,Willingness to pay,Passenger cars,Stated preferences,Mixed logit

German car buyers' willingness to pay to reduce CO2 emissions

Motorised individual transport strongly contributes to global CO2 emissions, due to its intensive usage of fossil fuels. Current political efforts addressing this issue (i.e. emission performance standards in the EU) are directed towards car manufacturers. This paper focuses on the demand side. It examines whether CO2 emissions per kilometre is a relevant attribute in car choices. Based on a stated preference experiment among potential car buyers from Germany, different mixed logit specifications are estimated. In addition, distributions of willingness to pay measures for an abatement of CO2 emissions are obtained. The results suggest that the emissions performance of a car matters substantially, but its consideration varies heavily across the sampled population. In particular, some evidence on gender, age and education effects on climate concerns is provided

German car buyers' willingness to pay to reduce CO2 emissions

Motorised individual transport strongly contributes to global CO2 emissions, due to its intensive usage of fossil fuels. Current political efforts addressing this issue (i.e. emission performance standards in the EU) are directed towards car manufacturers. This paper focuses on the demand side. It examines whether CO2 emissions per kilometre is a relevant attribute in car choices. Based on a stated preference experiment among potential car buyers from Germany, different mixed logit specifications are estimated. In addition, distributions of willingness to pay measures for an abatement of CO2 emissions are obtained. The results suggest that the emissions performance of a car matters substantially, but its consideration varies heavily across the sampled population. In particular, some evidence on gender, age and education effects on climate concerns is provided

Impact of Service Station Networks on Purchase Decisions of Alternative-fuel Vehicles

In this paper we analyze the impact of service station availability on the demand for alternative-fuel vehicles and the consumers' willingness to pay for an enlarged fueling infrastructure. We examine a stated preferences choice experiment conducted as a CAPI survey with about 600 interviews of potential car buyers in Germany and estimate the coefficients of a discrete choice model. We simulate different scenarios and analyze how individual choice probabilities for alternative fuel-types are changing with a modified fueling infrastructure. In our scenarios hybrids, LPG/CNG and hydrogen will be real alternatives to the existing conventional technologies. However, biofuels and electric power trains are well behind even in a situation where their infrastructure is equally developed. Moreover, on the basis of our model we compute what increases in fixed or variable costs consumers of different income groups are willing to accept for an increasing station density. --Fueling Infrastructure,Alternative Fuels,Automobile Market,Stated Preferences,Discrete Choice,Network Effects

Factors influencing German house owners' preferences on energy retrofits

In this paper, we identify key drivers and barriers for the adoption of building energy retrofits in Germany, which is promoted by public policy as an important measure to address the future challenges of climate change and energy security. We analyze data from a 2009 survey of more than 400 owner-occupiers of single-family detached, semidetached, and row houses in Germany, that was conducted as a computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI). In the survey, respondents were asked directly for reasons for and against retrofitting their homes, but also faced a choice experiment involving different energy retroft measures. Overall, both the descriptive and econo- metric results show that house owners who are able to afford it financially, for whom it is profitable, and for whom there is a favorable opportunity, are more likely to undertake energy retrofit activities. Based on an estimated mixed logit error component model, we also simulate the incentive effects of different policy options, such as public subsidies and energy tax increases

Accounting for uncertainty in willingness to pay for environmental benefits

Previous literature on the distribution of willingness to pay has focused on its heterogeneity distribution without addressing exact interval estimation. In this paper we derive and analyze Bayesian confidence sets for quantifying uncertainty in the determination of willingness to pay for carbon dioxide abatement. We use two empirical case studies: household decisions of energy-efficient heating versus insulation, and purchase decisions of ultralow- emission vehicles. We first show that deriving credible sets using the posterior distribution of the willingness to pay is straightforward in the case of deterministic consumer heterogeneity. However, when using individual estimates, which is the case for the random parameters of the mixed logit model, it is complex to define the distribution of interest for the interval estimation problem. This latter problem is actually more involved than determining the moments of the heterogeneity distribution of the willingness to pay using frequentist econometrics. A solution that we propose is to derive and then summarize the distribution of point estimates of the individual willingness to pay under different loss functions

Impact of service station networks on purchase decisions of alternative-fuel vehicles

In this paper we analyze the impact of service station availability on the demand for alternative-fuel vehicles and the consumers’ willingness to pay for an enlarged fueling infrastructure. We examine a stated preferences choice experiment conducted as a CAPI survey with about 600 interviews of potential car buyers in Germany and estimate the coefficients of a discrete choice model. We simulate different scenarios and analyze how individual choice probabilities for alternative fuel-types are changing with a modified fueling infrastructure. In our scenarios hybrids, LPG/CNG and hydrogen will be real alternatives to the existing conventional technologies. However, biofuels and electric power trains are well behind even in a situation where their infrastructure is equally developed. Moreover, on the basis of our model we compute what increases in fixed or variable costs consumers of different income groups are willing to accept for an increasing station density

Forecasting adoption of ultra-low-emission vehicles using the GHK simulator and bayes estimates of a multinomial probit model

In this paper we use Bayes estimates of a multinomial probit model with fully exible substitution patterns to forecast consumer response to ultra-low-emission vehicles. In this empirical application of the probit Gibbs sampler, we use statedpreference data on vehicle choice from a Germany-wide survey of potential lightduty-vehicle buyers using computer-assisted personal interviewing. We show that Bayesian estimation of a multinomial probit model with a full covariance matrix is feasible for this medium-scale problem. Using the posterior distribution of the parameters of the vehicle choice model as well as the GHK simulator we derive the choice probabilities of the different alternatives. We first show that the Bayes point estimates of the market shares reproduce the observed values. Then, we define a base scenario of vehicle attributes that aims at representing an average of the current vehicle choice situation in Germany. Consumer response to qualitative changes in the base scenario is subsequently studied. In particular, we analyze the effect of increasing the network of service stations for charging electric vehicles as well as for refueling hydrogen. The result is the posterior distribution of the choice probabilities that represent adoption of the energy-efficient technologies

Impact of service station networks on purchase decisions of alternative-fuel vehicles

In this paper we analyze the impact of service station availability on the demand for alternative-fuel vehicles and the consumers’ willingness to pay for an enlarged fueling infrastructure. We examine a stated preferences choice experiment conducted as a CAPI survey with about 600 interviews of potential car buyers in Germany and estimate the coefficients of a discrete choice model. We simulate different scenarios and analyze how individual choice probabilities for alternative fuel-types are changing with a modified fueling infrastructure. In our scenarios hybrids, LPG/CNG and hydrogen will be real alternatives to the existing conventional technologies. However, biofuels and electric power trains are well behind even in a situation where their infrastructure is equally developed. Moreover, on the basis of our model we compute what increases in fixed or variable costs consumers of different income groups are willing to accept for an increasing station density