Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

8-2020

Abstract

In this paper we build a search model with asymmetric information regarding houses' energy efficiency. The objective is to shed light on the house owners' incentives to disclose energy certificates (ECs) in the rental market. Such incentives depend not only on the rent premium for more efficient houses - as previously documented - but also on the implicit rent penalty for unlabeled houses. Interestingly, we show that such a penalty is higher the greater the disclosure rate of ECs in the local market. This suggests that the enforcement of the EC regulation should be more stringent during the early phases, as the boost in the initial disclosure rate would strengthen the incentives for later adoption. We illustrate the theoretical predictions with empirical evidence from the Spanish rental market.

Keywords

Asymmetric information, Energy efficiency, Adoption rate, Rental market, Search

Discipline

Eastern European Studies | Energy Policy | Real Estate

Publication

Energy Economics

Volume

90

First Page

1

Last Page

10

ISSN

0140-9883

Identifier

10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104813

Publisher

Elsevier

Embargo Period

5-23-2021

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104813

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