Fashion, fads and the popularity of choices: Micro-foundations for diffusion consumer theory

Mercure, Jean-François

doi:10.1016/j.strueco.2018.06.001

Cited by 17 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…In reality, social influence effects [136] and the actions of "transformational individuals" [137] who inspire others to collective action appear to be important in driving changes to values and behaviour. An additional layer of complexity is also introduced when such trends are considered to evolve dynamically over time [138].…”

Section: Representation Of Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Take me to your leader: Using socio-technical energy transitions (STET) modelling to explore the role of actors in decarbonisation pathways

Strachan

2019

Energy Research & Social Science

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Quantitative modelling analysis in support of national and global decarbonisation pathways has never been more important to achieving global climate stabilisation in line with the Paris Agreement. However, established equilibrium and optimisation models tend to radically simplify their depiction of societal and political/institutional actors. This can make them difficult to use for implementing specific energy and climate policies in the near term and aligning these with long term targets. Most energy systems analysis continues to pair such techno-economic models with entirely qualitative narratives about future political and societal developments. The result is that these critical factors often fade into the background in subsequent discourse. In this paper, we utilise BLUEa leading socio-technical energy transition (STET) model of the United Kingdom's (UK) energy systemto capture elements of the heterogeneity, consistency and co-evolution of societal and political drivers. We focus specifically on exploring government-led and societally-led energy transitions and investigating the differences in their decarbonisation pathways and end states. Our modelling exercise finds that it is not who leads per se that is the most critical, but rather the level of the initial effort and subsequent commitment from both leader and follower actors that appears to regulate the pace at which decarbonisation pathways unfold. However, systemic inertia in all cases means that the deepest decarbonisation targets continue to appear very difficult to achieve.

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Section: Representation Of Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Take me to your leader: Using socio-technical energy transitions (STET) modelling to explore the role of actors in decarbonisation pathways

Strachan

2019

Energy Research & Social Science

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“…For the diffusion of innovations, industrial and social dynamics are self-reinforcing, and both make it more likely that households choose dominant technologies. We represent these dynamics by constraining a technology's growth by its market share (S i ), based on Mercure (2017Mercure ( , 2015.…”

Section: Technology Diffusion Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating the deep decarbonisation of residential heating for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C

et al. 2018

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Whole-economy scenarios for limiting global warming to 1.5°C suggest that direct carbon emissions in the buildings sector should decrease to almost zero by 2050, but leave unanswered the question how this could be achieved by real-world policies. We simulate which policy measures could induce an almost complete decarbonisation of residential heating, the by far largest source of direct emissions in residential buildings. Under which assumptions is it possible, and how long would it take? We use the non-equilibrium bottom-up model FTT:Heat to simulate policies for a transition towards low-carbon heating in a context of inertia and bounded rationality, focusing on the uptake of heating systems. Our results indicate that the near-zero decarbonisation is achievable by 2050, but requires substantial policy efforts. We find that policy mixes are more effective for incentivising the uptake of fuelefficient low-carbon technologies, compared to a residential carbon tax as the only policy. In combination with subsidies and procurement policies for renewables, near-complete decarbonisation could be achieved with a tax of 50-200 €/tCO 2. Without being complimented by additional policies, carbon taxes show a decreasing marginal impact on total emission reductions, thus remaining insufficient for deep decarbonisation. In all scenarios, the decarbonisation of heating would increase projected heating costs faced by households initially, but could lead to cost reductions in most world regions in the medium term. We show that the potential impacts of policies highly depend on behavioural decisionmaking by households, especially in a context of deep decarbonisation and rapid transformation.

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“…This is a dynamical equation that is path-dependent and hysteretic (Mercure, 2018). 10 Costs and policy incentivise agents to make choices that orient the trajectory of diffusion, and the trajectory has momentum.…”

Section: The Replicator Dynamics Equation Of Evolutionary Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the equilibrium model, agents all respond in the same way to changes in government policy. Without social influence, the market shares for the technology will change only if the incentives change (Mercure, 2018).…”

Section: Social Influence and Consumer Choicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Integrated assessment modelling as a positive science: private passenger road transport policies to meet a climate target well below 2 ∘C

2018

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Transport generates a large and growing component of global greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. Effective transport emissions reduction policies are needed in order to reach a climate target well below 2 ∘ C. Representations of technology evolution in current integrated assessment models (IAM) make use of systems optimisations that may not always provide sufficient insight on consumer response to realistic policy packages for extensive use in policy-making. Here, we introduce FTT: transport, an evolutionary technology diffusion simulation model for road transport technology, as an IAM sub-component, which features sufficiently realistic features of consumers and of existing technological trajectories that enables to simulate the impact of detailed climate policies in private passenger road transport. Integrated to the simulation-based macroeconometric IAM E3ME-FTT, a plausible scenario of transport decarbonisation is given, defined by a detailed transport policy package, that reaches sufficient emissions reductions to achieve the 2 ∘ C target of the Paris Agreement. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10584-018-2262-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Fashion, fads and the popularity of choices: Micro-foundations for diffusion consumer theory

Cited by 17 publications

References 55 publications

Take me to your leader: Using socio-technical energy transitions (STET) modelling to explore the role of actors in decarbonisation pathways

Take me to your leader: Using socio-technical energy transitions (STET) modelling to explore the role of actors in decarbonisation pathways

Simulating the deep decarbonisation of residential heating for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C

Integrated assessment modelling as a positive science: private passenger road transport policies to meet a climate target well below 2 ∘C

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