Energy Use and Temperature Habituation: Evidence From High Frequency Thermostat Usage Data

Abstract

Using micro-level thermostat data from 27,000 U.S. households, we analyze how home heating/cooling decisions respond to weather. Responses are greater for extreme heat than for extreme cold and persist for at least 30 days after exposure, due in part to transaction costs but also to changes in intrinsic preferences. Failure to understand habit can lead us to overestimate the impact of short-term policy nudges but underestimate the long-run impact of small changes. Higher frequency estimates of how behavior responds to weather improve our understanding of climate adaptation as climate change affects not only mean temperatures but also variances. (JEL C55, D03, Q4) * We thank the co-editor, Charles Mason, and three anonymous referees as well as seminar participants at Hamilton College, Vassar College, Columbia University, and the Eastern Economic Association conference for their insightful comments. All errors are ours.

Are Fair Weather Fans Affected by Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation, and Live Game Attendance

“…In addition to a number of laboratory studies (see Duhigg, 2012, for a review), recent growth in empirical research on habit formation focuses on consumer decisions made in the field and seeks to address key questions such as whether consumers form habits over time based on past decisions, the persistence of such habits, and under what conditions they will be altered. This article addresses these questions by analyzing the impact of exogenous weather shocks; our findings regarding live game attendance decisions represent additional evidence in a line of research that includes migrants' preferences toward consumer-packaged goods (Bronnenberg, Dubé, & Gentzkow, 2012), diet variety of migrants (Atkin, 2013), adoption of preventative health behavior (Hussam, Rigol, Reggiani, & Rabbani, 2016), voting turnout (Fujiwara, Meng, & Vogl, 2016), exercise decisions (Humphreys, Ruseski, & Zhou, 2015;Royer, Stehr, & Sydnor, 2015), charitable donation responses to sports-related shocks (Meer, 2013), gasoline demand (Scott, 2012), and home energy consumption (Allcott & Rogers, 2014;Ge & Ho, 2019).…”

A method to generate heating and cooling schedules based on data from connected thermostats

“…With it, they were able to estimate temperatures by climate region. Ge and Ho (2018) used thermostat data from 27,000 American homes to study the persistence of habits in consumers' temperature setting behavior. In all cases, however, the investigators had no additional information about the homes beyond their locations, which limited the scope of their analyses.…”

Are Fair Weather Fans Affected by Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation and Live Game Attendance

“…In addition to a number of laboratory studies (see Duhigg (2012) for a review), recent growth in empirical research on habit formation focuses on consumer decisions made in the field and seeks to address key questions such as whether consumers form habits over time based on past decisions, the persistence of such habits, and under what conditions they will be altered. This paper addresses these questions by analyzing the impact of exogenous weather shocks; our findings regarding live game attendance decisions represent additional evidence in a line of research that includes migrants' preferences toward consumer packaged goods (Bronnenberg et al, 2012), diet variety of migrants (Atkin, 2013), adoption of preventative health behavior (Hussam et al, 2016), voting turnout (Fujiwara et al, 2016), exercise decisions (Humphreys et al 2015;Royer et al 2015), charitable donation responses to sports related shocks (Meer, 2013), gasoline demand (Scott, 2012), and home energy consumption (Allcott and Rogers 2014;Ge and Ho 2017).…”