Inner conflict between nuclear power generation and electricity rates: A Japanese case study

Abstract

Since the March 11 earthquake, Japanese households have been facing a trade-off problem between decreasing dependency on nuclear power generation and avoiding an increase in electricity rates. We analyze this inner conflict quantitatively, adopting two economic-psychological approaches: First, we note that the trade-off causes cognitive dissonance after making a choice that results in a wider desirability gap between the chosen alternative and the rejected alternative. Second, the consumer surplus improves by 11.2% with a no-choice option for suspending judgment in the presence of cognitive dissonance. Third, individual characteristics such as gender and annual household income are significantly correlated with both cognitive dissonance and a preference for the no-choice option. JEL classification codes: D3, D12, L94, Q41

Moral Suasion and Economic Incentives: Field Experimental Evidence from Energy Demand

“…Ida, Takemura, and Sato (2015) find that these preferences are systematically different between average Japanese households and those in the Fukushima prefecture, where the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred in 2011.…”

Public preferences for alternative electricity mixes in post-Fukushima Japan

“…The second choice experiment was identical, but with the inclusion of a "none of the two alternatives" option. For the first experiment, Ida et al (2015) find a WTP of about US$ 0.006 for a 1% reduction in nuclear energy. In the second experiment, the WTP is about 21% higher.…”

“…They find that the WTP for a reduction of the number of deaths caused by a nuclear power plant disaster is about 60 times higher than that for a coal-fired power plant. Ida et al (2015) investigate the trade-off between the aim to reduce the dependence on nuclear fuels and the aim of avoiding electricity price increases. Their investigation is based on a web survey of 2,000 Japanese households in February 2013, which included two choice experiments.…”

Preferences for Nuclear Power in Post-Fukushima Japan: Evidence from a Large Nationwide Household Survey

“…In Japan, public support for and trust in nuclear power have visibly collapsed after the Fukushima accident [28,29]. Thus, renewable energy is considered the most favorable while nuclear energy is the least in Japan [30][31][32][33]. These previous studies mainly focus on the public's overall energy preferences, and some of them conducted cross-country comparisons.…”