PREPAID ELECTRICITY PLAN AND ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR

By using customer‐level residential billing data from 2008 to 2010 of a major utility company in Phoenix metropolitan area, this study adopts a matching approach and a difference‐in‐differences method to estimate empirically the impact of a prepaid electricity plan on residential electricity consump...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inContemporary economic policy Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 125 - 142
Main Authors Qiu, Yueming, Xing, Bo, Wang, Yi David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston, USA Wiley Periodicals, Inc 01.01.2017
Blackwell Publishers Ltd
Western Economic Association
Subjects
Bias
Billings
Consumer behavior
Consumer behaviour
Consumer research
Consumption
Electric utilities
Electricity
Energy consumption
Marketing research
Personal income
Phoenix Arizona
Prepaid services
Wealth
United States > US
Phoenix Arizona
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Summary:By using customer‐level residential billing data from 2008 to 2010 of a major utility company in Phoenix metropolitan area, this study adopts a matching approach and a difference‐in‐differences method to estimate empirically the impact of a prepaid electricity plan on residential electricity consumption, after correcting for selection bias. Results show that the prepaid program is associated with a 12% reduction in electricity usage, customers with lower level of wealth or those with higher amount of arrearage prior to switching to the prepaid program tend to save more electricity after switching, and prepaid customers save more electricity in the summer than winter. (JEL L94, Q41)
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1074-3529
1465-7287
DOI:10.1111/coep.12170