The National Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1978 requires the Federal Trade Commission to mandate labels for appliances indicating their energy consumption. The purposes of this study are to measure the level of awareness of appliance energy labels by recent purchasers of refrigerators and washers, and to measure changes in the degree to which energy considerations entered into the purchase decisions of national samples of consumers before and after introduction of the FTC program.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersonC. Dennis and ClaxtonJohn (1981), “Energy Labels for Appliances,”Consumers and Energy Conservation, eds., ClaxtonJohn, AndersonDennis, RitchieJ.R. Brent, and McDougallGordon, New York: Praeger Publishers, 243–250.
2.
AndersonC. Dennis and ClaxtonJohn (1982), “Barriers to Consumer Choice of Energy Efficient Products,”Journal of Consumer Research 9 (September) 163–170.
3.
BettmanJames R. (1979), An Information Processing Theory of Consumer Choice, Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley.
4.
CampbellDonald and StanleyJulian (1966), Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research, Chicago: Rand McNally.
5.
ChesnutR., (1976), “The Impact of Energy-Efficiency Ratings: Selective vs. Elaborative Encoding,” Purdue Papers in Consumer Psychology, No. 160.
6.
ClaxtonJohn and AndersonDennis (1980), “Energuide Evaluation,” report prepared for Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Ottawa, Canada.
7.
Consumer and Corporate Affairs of Canada (1985), Energuide Evaluation, Bureau of Policy Coordination, Program Evaluation Division, Volumes 1–4.
8.
CookThomas and CampbellDonald (1979), Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings, Chicago: Rand McNally.
9.
CraigSamuel and McCannJohn (1978), “Assessing Communication Effects on Energy Conservation,”Journal of Consumer Research5 (September) 82–89.
10.
DayGeorge (1976), “Assessing the Effects of Information Disclosure Requirements,”Journal of Marketing, 40 (April), 42–52.
11.
“DOE Proposed Dropping Mandatory Energy Standards for Home Appliances,” (1982), Merchandising, 56–58.
12.
Federal Register (1979), Vol. 44, 66466
13.
GaskellGeorge, EllisPeter, and PikeR. (1981), “Effects of Consumption Feedback,”Consumers and Energy Conservation, eds., ClaxtonJohn, AndersonDennis, RitchieJ.R. Brent, and McDougallGordon, New York: Praeger Publishers, 251–261.
14.
KratzCarolyn (1981), “An Evaluation of the Federal Trade Commission's Energy Labeling Rule,” (1981), unpublished paper, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
15.
McDougallGordon, ClaxtonJohn, RitchieJ.R. Brent, and AndersonC. Dennis (1981), “Consumer Energy Research: A Review,”Journal of Consumer Research8 (December) 343–354.
16.
McNeilDennis and WilkieWilliam (1979), “Public Policy and Consumer Information: Impact of the New Energy Labels,” Journal of Consumer Research, 6 (June) 1–11.
17.
MillerJ. (1978), Labeling—The State of the Art, Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.
18.
OlshavskyRichard (1973), “Consumer-Salesperson Interaction in Appliance Retailing,”Journal of Marketing Research9 (May) 208–212.
19.
RayMichael (1976), “When Does Consumer Information Processing Research Actually Have Anything to Do With Consumer Information Processing?,”Proceedings of the Association for Consumer Research Conference372–375.
20.
RedingerR. and StaelinRichard (1980) “An Experimental Investigation of a Consumer's Decision to Buy Energy Efficient Refrigerators,”Proceedings of the International Conference on Consumer Behavior and Energy Use, S1–30.
21.
Response Analysis Corporation (1977), “Communication Effectiveness of Energy Consumption Labels for Major Appliances,”Washington, DC: Federal Trade Commission.
22.
RitchieJ.R.BrentJohn Claxton, and McDougallGordon (1981), Consumer Energy Conservation Options—Professional and Consumer Perspectives, prepared for Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Ottawa, Canada.
23.
SternPaul and GardnerGerald (1981), “Psychological Research and Energy Policy,”American Psychologist, 36, 329–342.
24.
ThorelliH., BeckerH., and EngledowJ. (1975) The Information Seeker: An International Study of Consumer Information and Advertising Image, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co.
25.
WorrallJay (1976) Labeling and Consumer Information Programs for Frigerator-Freezers: A Study of the Effectiveness of Energy Use Labeling as a Device to Increase the Efficiency of the Nation's Appliances, McLean, Va: Human Sciences Research, Inc.
