Abstract: We document substantial rigidity in household electricity demand in response to large price shocks. We partnered with an electricity retailer to run a field experiment in which randomly-selected households received discounts of up to 50% on their total electricity bill or up to 95% off their per unit cost of electricity for a full month. We show that the quantity of electricity consumed was unaffected by these discounts. Exploiting rich billing, smart meter, and survey data, we document responses that are much more inelastic than previously observed in scenarios that raise prices for a few hours or raise or lower prices for indefinitely-long periods of time. Our results hold even among subgroups that we ex-ante believed were most likely to respond.

中文翻译：

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每月用电需求（非）弹性的实验研究

摘要：我们记录了应对大价格冲击的家庭电力需求的刚性。我们与一家电力零售商合作进行了一项现场试验，在该试验中，随机选择的家庭在一个月内可获得总电费折扣高达50％或单位电费折扣高达95％。我们证明，所消耗的电量不受这些折扣的影响。利用丰富的账单，智能电表和调查数据，我们记录的响应比以前在无限期提高价格几个小时或提高或降低价格的情况下观察到的更具弹性。我们的结果甚至在我们之前认为最有可能做出回应的亚组中也存在。