Much debate has focused on the appropriateness of the rational paradigm and its mathematical manifestation—utility theory—as a foundation for descriptive models of human behavior. Comparative discussion has been hampered by a lack of mathematically based noneconomic decision models. Such a model is presented in this paper, derived from the search-list decision-heuristic, that describes household decisions concerning energy-conservation investments. The model was estimated with energy use, demographic, and energy audit data collected in 1982 from households in the state of Connecticut, USA.
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