دانلود رایگان مقاله نقش اطلاعات عمومی در افزایش خریداران خانه، تمایل به پرداخت برای مسکن سبز

Abstract

To explain the weak demand for green housing in Chinese cities, researchers point to the lack of reliable and accurate information to convince owners to invest, yet there is little concrete evidence that such information would in fact promote homebuyers' investment in green housing. We implement an information experiment in Beijing. We select two pairs of residential complexes – each pair has two complexes located in the same housing submarket, and one is green while the other is not. We ask the respondents' willingness to buy a new green housing unit, and, if yes, the price premium they are willing to pay. Then we show them an information card that documents that green apartments outperform their non-green counterparts in terms of several indoor environmental indicators, and then ask them the same two questions. We find that dwellers living in green complexes present a significantly higher initial willingness-to-pay for greenness, but this difference narrows significantly after our information treatment, as the non-green-complex dwellers' willingness-to-pay for greenness increases dramatically. This inspiring result suggests that Chinese urban households will be encouraged to purchase green housing if they are provided more reliable and concrete information.

5. Conclusion

While it is widely acknowledged that lack of reliable and accurate information regarding green buildings' energy efficiency and living comfort hinders the development of the green building market, there is little concrete evidence of the role information plays in promoting consumers' investment in energy-efficient and environmentally friendly buildings. Based on our experiment conducted in Beijing, this paper contributes to our understanding of households' present knowledge about green buildings as well as the influence of new information on purchasing decisions and WTP for green buildings. It is striking that the overwhelming majority of our respondents are ignorant of the green building certification and only a small number consider greenness when buying apartments. Those respondents who take into account living comfort and health or weight energy and environmental issues as more important, as well as those with better access to information about green buildings, may self-select to purchase green apartments. Dwellers living in green complexes present a signifi- cantly higher initial WTP for greenness, but this difference narrows significantly after our information treatment that compares the indoor environmental indicators of green and non-green apartments, as the non-green-complex dwellers'WTP for greenness increases dramatically after the information treatment. This encouraging result suggests that households will be encouraged to buy green apartments by more concrete information. We also find that the officially certified and non-certified complexes have similar capacity to increase homebuyers' WTP if they are under the same “green” developer's name, suggesting that developers may enjoy the benefits of being seen as “green” and commensurate spillover effects by only having some of their projects certified.