Subsidies and Time Discounting in New Technology Adoption: Evidence from Solar Photovoltaic Systems
研究了一个通过补贴未来电力产出而非前期投资来推广太阳能光伏系统的项目，发现家庭对未来收益存在显著贴现，表明前期投资补贴能以更低预算成本促进技术采用。
We study a generous program to promote the adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems through subsidies on future electricity production, rather than through upfront investment subsidies. We develop a tractable dynamic model of new technology adoption, also accounting for local market heterogeneity. We identify the discount factor from demand responses to variation that shifts expected future but not current utilities. Despite the massive adoption, we find that households significantly discounted the future benefits from the new technology. This implies that an upfront investment subsidy program would have promoted the technology at a much lower budgetary cost.