2017 Volume 30 Issue 2 Pages 161-170
The reduction in energy consumption has been one of the most important policy issues from the viewpoint of global warning problem and energy security in many countries. Although Japan has promoted energy-savings mainly in industrial sector, energy consumptions in residential sector notably keep increasing. Using the survey data before the Great East Japan Earthquake, this paper conducts an econometric analysis in order to examine how economic factors such as the perceived economic benefits affect energy conservation of households as well as the effect of accurate information of feasible economic benefits on household’s energy savings. Main result is twofold. First, in many energy saving activities, the impact of economic factors such as the perceived economic benefits on the promotion of household’s energy saving activities may be limited. Second, there seem to be no effect of the provision of the feasible the economic benefits on energy saving activity of households.
