IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea26/404857.html

Cognitive Friction and Rooftop Solar Adoption: Evidence from a Latent Class WTA Model in Rural China

Author

Listed:
  • Chao, Zenghui
  • Gu, Wenhao
  • Xu, Chenguang
  • Zhang, Jun

Abstract

This paper studies how cognitive friction shapes rural households’ willingness to lease rooftops for distributed solar photovoltaics. Using double-bounded WTA survey data from 311 households in Pingdingshan, Henan Province, we estimate a two-class latent class model that allows households to follow different information-processing rules. About 66.8 percent of households belong to a policy-familiar class that incorporates return confidence into project valuation. Their mean WTA is 31.03 yuan per square meter per year, compared with 57.38 yuan for the policy-unfamiliar class. Counterfactual simulations show that improving return confidence and policy familiarity can sharply raise participation and substitute for cash subsidies. Raising both to their highest levels increases zero-subsidy participation from 15.1 percent to 88.7 percent and generates substantial annual CO2 abatement.

Suggested Citation

  • Chao, Zenghui & Gu, Wenhao & Xu, Chenguang & Zhang, Jun, 2026. "Cognitive Friction and Rooftop Solar Adoption: Evidence from a Latent Class WTA Model in Rural China," 2026 Annual Meeting, July 26 - 28, 2026, Kansas City, Missouri 404857, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea26:404857
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.404857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/404857/files/AAEA2026.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.404857?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea26:404857. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.