Research shows that energy-efficient appliances are cost-effective, yet they are not widely adopted. The phenomenon is commonly referred to as the “energy-efficiency gap”. Most studies find that inadequate information is an essential factor contributing to this gap. While deciding to buy a product, the capital cost information is more salient than operating cost information. Labels on appliances are being used globally to provide energy use information to consumers. In the majority of countries, these labels give information in physical energy units such as kilowatt-hour. Several researchers have studied whether financial information, such as annual operating cost can be more useful for consumer decision-making. A review of these studies shows that there is a difference in the impact across appliances within studies. A difference in the impact is also observed for the same appliance across studies. Recent studies on refrigerators show that annual operating cost information on labels increases the probability that consumers compare products based on costs and benefits of alternatives and are more likely to choose energy-efficient options. These studies are limited to the European markets. Moreover, these studies do not estimate consumer willingness to pay for a product in a higher energy efficiency category. In this study, we extend the work by examining the impact of annual energy cost information on labels of refrigerators in the Indian market. We estimate the change in consumer willingness to pay for a higher category of energy efficiency when the annual operating cost information is provided on labels. We conducted a stated preference survey in a metropolitan city in India. In this survey, we interviewed households on their choice of refrigerators from two alternatives differing in their characteristics such as energy efficiency category, brand and price on a series of choicesets. We divided the sample of 302 households randomly into control and experiment group. In the choice sets shown to the respondents in the experiment group, the annual energy cost of the refrigerator was also presented alongside the label. We specified a mixed-logit model so that we could estimate the magnitude and the distribution of consumer willingness to pay for a higher category of efficiency in the two groups. Our results confirm the findings of past studies that unlike the existing label, the labels with annual operating cost information allows consumers to compare products based on energy efficiency categories. Using the operating cost information on labels, consumers differentiate between different classes of energy efficiency and place a higher value on a higher category of energy efficiency. In the absence of energy cost information, consumers are indifferent to categories of energy efficiency. We find that the willingness to pay for a higher category of energy efficiency is insignificant in the control group. However, in the experiment group, the consumer willingness to pay for the higher efficiency category is estimated to be US$200 at a 95% confidence interval of $104–296. To place these values in perspective, the mean price of the refrigerators considered in the study is $285, and the associated lifetime savings in the operating cost due to increase in energy efficiency for a range of assumed discount rate (1–10\%) is $102–66. The share of the sample placing a higher value on

中文翻译：

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能源成本信息和消费者决策：印度冰箱购买选择实验的结果

研究表明，节能电器具有成本效益，但并未被广泛采用。这种现象通常被称为“能效差距”。大多数研究发现，信息不足是造成这种差距的一个重要因素。在决定购买产品时，资本成本信息比运营成本信息更显着。家电标签正在全球范围内用于向消费者提供能源使用信息。在大多数国家/地区，这些标签以千瓦时等物理能源单位提供信息。一些研究人员研究了财务信息（例如年度运营成本）是否对消费者决策更有用。对这些研究的回顾表明，研究中不同电器的影响存在差异。跨研究还观察到相同器具的影响差异。最近对冰箱的研究表明，标签上的年度运营成本信息增加了消费者根据替代品的成本和收益比较产品的可能性，并且更有可能选择节能选项。这些研究仅限于欧洲市场。此外，这些研究并未估计消费者愿意为更高能效类别的产品付费。在这项研究中，我们通过检查年度能源成本信息对印度市场冰箱标签的影响来扩展工作。当标签上提供年度运营成本信息时，我们估计消费者为更高类别的能效支付意愿的变化。我们在印度的一个大城市进行了一项陈述偏好调查。在本次调查中，我们采访了家庭，他们在一系列选择集上从两种不同的冰箱选择方案中进行了采访，这些选择在能源效率类别、品牌和价格等方面有所不同。我们将 302 户样本随机分为对照组和实验组。在向实验组的受访者展示的选择集中，冰箱的年度能源成本也与标签一起显示。我们指定了一个混合对数模型，以便我们可以估计两个组中消费者为更高类别的效率支付意愿的幅度和分布。我们的结果证实了过去研究的结果，与现有的标签不同，带有年度运营成本信息的标签允许消费者根据能效类别比较产品。使用标签上的运营成本信息，消费者可以区分不同的能效等级，并对更高的能效等级给予更高的评价。在缺乏能源成本信息的情况下，消费者对能源效率的类别漠不关心。我们发现，在控制组中，为更高类别的能源效率付费的意愿是微不足道的。然而，在实验组中，在 104-296 美元的 95% 置信区间内，消费者为更高效率类别支付的意愿估计为 200 美元。为了正确看待这些值，研究中考虑的冰箱的平均价格为 285 美元，在假定的贴现率 (1–10\%) 范围内，由于能源效率的提高，相关的终身运营成本节省为 102–66 美元。样本所占的比例较高