IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wil/wileco/2004-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Private Provision of Environmental Public Goods: Household Participation in Green-Electricity Programs

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew J. Kotchen

    (Williams College)

  • Michael R. Moore

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

Green-electricity programs provide an opportunity to study private provision of public goods in a field setting. The first part of this paper develops a theoretical framework to analyze household decisions about voluntary participation in green-electricity programs. We consider different participation mechanisms and show how they relate to existing theory on either pure or impure public goods. The models are used to examine the implications of participation mechanisms for the level of public-good provision. The second part of the paper provides an empirical investigation of actual participation decisions in two green- electricity programs: one based on a pure public good and the other based on an impure public good. The data come from original household surveys of participants and nonparticipants in both programs, along with utility data on household electricity consumption. The econometric results are interpreted in the context of the theoretical models and are compared to other studies of privately provided public goods.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew J. Kotchen & Michael R. Moore, 2004. "Private Provision of Environmental Public Goods: Household Participation in Green-Electricity Programs," Department of Economics Working Papers 2004-07, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    • Handle: RePEc:wil:wileco:2004-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/kotchenprivate.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harbaugh, William T., 1998. "What do donations buy?: A model of philanthropy based on prestige and warm glow," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 269-284, February.
    2. Clotfelter, C. T., 2003. "Alumni giving to elite private colleges and universities," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 109-120, April.
    3. Rose, Steven K. & Clark, Jeremy & Poe, Gregory L. & Rondeau, Daniel & Schulze, William D., 2002. "The private provision of public goods: tests of a provision point mechanism for funding green power programs," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 131-155, February.
    4. Roe, Brian & Teisl, Mario F. & Levy, Alan & Russell, Matthew, 2001. "US consumers' willingness to pay for green electricity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 917-925, September.
    5. Cornes, Richard & Sandler, Todd, 1994. "The comparative static properties of the impure public good model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 403-421, July.
    6. Andrew A. Goett & Kathleen Hudson & Kenneth E. Train, 2000. "Customers' Choice Among Retail Energy Suppliers: The Willingness-to-Pay for Service Attributes," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 1-28.
    7. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    8. Smith, Vincent H. & Kehoe, Michael R. & Cremer, Mary E., 1995. "The private provision of public goods: Altruism and voluntary giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 107-126, September.
    9. Andreoni, James, 1988. "Privately provided public goods in a large economy: The limits of altruism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 57-73, February.
    10. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    11. Murdoch, James C. & Sandler, Todd & Vijverberg, Wim P. M., 2003. "The participation decision versus the level of participation in an environmental treaty: a spatial probit analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 337-362, February.
    12. Robert G. Ethier & Gregory L. Poe & William D. Schulze & Jeremy Clark, 2000. "Comparison of Hypothetical Phone and Mail Contingent Valuation Responses for Green-Pricing Electricity Programs," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 76(1), pages 54-67.
    13. Andrew A. Goett & Kathleen Hudson & Kenneth E. Train, 2000. "Customers' Choice Among Retail Energy Suppliers: The Willingness-to-Pay for Service Attributes," The Energy Journal, , vol. 21(4), pages 1-28, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kotchen, Matthew J. & Moore, Michael R., 2007. "Private provision of environmental public goods: Household participation in green-electricity programs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Arnab Mitra & Michael R. Moore, 2018. "Green Electricity Markets as Mechanisms of Public-Goods Provision: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(1), pages 45-71, September.
    3. Dagher, Leila & Bird, Lori & Heeter, Jenny, 2017. "Residential green power demand in the United States," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(PB), pages 1062-1068.
    4. Roland Menges & Carsten Schroeder & Stefan Traub, 2005. "Altruism, Warm Glow and the Willingness-to-Donate for Green Electricity: An Artefactual Field Experiment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 31(4), pages 431-458, August.
    5. Jacobsen, Grant D. & Kotchen, Matthew J. & Vandenbergh, Michael P., 2012. "The behavioral response to voluntary provision of an environmental public good: Evidence from residential electricity demand," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 946-960.
    6. Brunner, Eric & Sonstelie, Jon, 2003. "School finance reform and voluntary fiscal federalism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2157-2185, September.
    7. Romano, Richard & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2001. "Why charities announce donations: a positive perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 423-447, September.
    8. Litvine, Dorian & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2011. "Helping "light green" consumers walk the talk: Results of a behavioural intervention survey in the Swiss electricity market," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 462-474, January.
    9. Julia Blasch & Mehdi Farsi, 2012. "Retail demand for voluntary carbon offsets - A choice experiment among Swiss consumers," IED Working paper 12-18, IED Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich.
    10. Matthew Kotchen & Michael Moore, 2008. "Conservation: From Voluntary Restraint to a Voluntary Price Premium," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 40(2), pages 195-215, June.
    11. Matthew J. Kotchen & Michael R. Moore, 2004. "Conservation Behavior: From Voluntary Restraint to a Voluntary Price Premium," Department of Economics Working Papers 2004-16, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    12. Ek, Kristina & Söderholm, Patrik, 2008. "Norms and economic motivation in the Swedish green electricity market," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1-2), pages 169-182, December.
    13. Pilar Useche, 2016. "Who Contributes to the Provision of Public Goods at the Community Level? The Case of Potable Water in Ghana," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 34(6), pages 869-888, November.
    14. Jochimsen, Beate, 2019. "Christmas lights in Berlin: New empirical evidence for the private provision of a public good," FiFo Discussion Papers - Finanzwissenschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 19-04, University of Cologne, FiFo Institute for Public Economics.
    15. Erik Schokkaert & Luc Ootegem, 2000. "Preference Variation and Private Donations," International Economic Association Series, in: L.-A. Gérard-Varet & S.-C. Kolm & J. Mercier Ythier (ed.), The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism, chapter 3, pages 78-95, Palgrave Macmillan.
    16. Paul Pecorino, 2015. "Olson’s Logic of Collective Action at fifty," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 243-262, March.
    17. Duncan, Brian, 2004. "A theory of impact philanthropy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2159-2180, August.
    18. Mewton, Ross T. & Cacho, Oscar J., 2011. "Green Power voluntary purchases: Price elasticity and policy analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 377-385, January.
    19. Vesterlund, Lise, 2003. "The informational value of sequential fundraising," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 627-657, March.
    20. Conte, Marc N. & Jacobsen, Grant D., 2016. "Explaining Demand for Green Electricity Using Data from All U.S. Utilities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 122-130.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pure and impure public goods; private provision; green electricity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources

    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:wil:wileco:2004-07. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Greg Phelan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edwilus.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.