Energy related financial literacy, bounded rationality and the energy efficiency gap

There is evidence that many individuals make suboptimal investment decisions when the benefits and costs associated with that decision are distributed over time.  One example is the decision to adopt new electrical appliances, with the benefits of choosing a more energy efficient device materializing only in the future.

Prof. Filippini will provide a lecture describing the energy efficiency gap, energy literacy, financial literacy, bounded rationality and how these concepts are related.  Following this he will describe two randomised-controlled trials which test the impact of decision support tools aiming to encourage the adoption of energy efficient appliances.  Public policy implications of the results will then be discussed.

This lecture is part of a two day event focusing on energy efficiency taking place at the Grantham Research Institute, LSE on Thursday 31^st May and Friday 1^st June.

Biography

Massimo Filippini has held a dual professorship in economics at the ETH Zurich and the Università della Svizzera Italiana since October 1999.  He is director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Economics (CEPE) at ETH Zürich.  He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University and at MIT.  Professor Filippini is a member of several editorial boards and has published several books and book chapters and more than seventy articles in peer-reviewed journals on the following subjects: energy economics and policy, transport economics, health economics, and the economics of public services.