Energy Economics and Finance Seminar
Speaker
Location
Kleinman Center Classroom
Fisher Fine Arts Building, Room 306
Getting Here
Event Summary
The seminar series in Energy Economics & Finance (EEF) is jointly organized by Wharton’s Business Economics and Public Policy Department, the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, and Wharton’s Business, Climate and Environment Lab. The scope of the seminar includes regulation and policy papers. The scope of the seminar also includes environmental and transportation issues, as long as there is a connection with energy. Sessions are biweekly on Mondays from 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Snacks, beer, and wine will be served after the seminar!
For Fall 2024, the seminar will be held in-person in the Kleinman Center Classroom (Fisher Fine Arts Building Room 306).
Find and add a Google Calendar version of the schedule on the BEPP seminar page.
To sign up for the seminar, please send your name, email, and affiliation to Dhivya Kaushik: dhivya@wharton.upenn.edu
Imelda
Talk Title: Prepayment, Salience, and Price Elasticity of Electricity Demand in a Developing Country Context
Abstract: The use of prepaid electricity meters requires customers to make payments prior to consumption, as opposed to the conventional end-of-the-month bill. If prepayment enhances price salience, we would expect consumers to exhibit greater responsiveness to price changes compared to their postpaid counterparts. This paper investigates this hypothesis by investigating the impact of prepaid electricity metering on consumer responsiveness to price changes compared to traditional postpaid systems in Indonesia, which has over 40 million households using prepaid electricity – the highest number in the world. Using quasi-experimental tariff variations that are driven by the changes in national regulations, we present compelling evidence that prepaid meter users exhibit at least double the price elasticity compared to their postpaid counterparts. Our incentivized survey on individual willingness-to-pay indicates positive consumer welfare, underscoring increased consumer surplus from the use of prepayment systems. This suggests that salience-improving technologies, such as prepaid electricity meters, have the potential to advance climate policy goals by curbing carbon emissions through energy conservation.
Fall Seminar Dates:
- 9/9: Imelda, Geneva Graduate Institute
- 9/16: Pari Sastry, Columbia University
- 9/30: Sandra Schafhautle, University of Pennsylvania
- 10/14: Seth Blumsack, Penn State
- 10/28: Lucy Qiu, University of Maryland
- 12/2: Karen Palmer, Resources for the Future