Consumer Behavior and Energy Policy

?Edited by a distinguished interdisciplinary group of Dutch, English, French and West German scholars, this book contains a collection of papers selected from presentations made in 1985 at the Second International Conference on Consumer Behavior and Energy Policy. The volume draws together for the first time the major disciplines concerned with consumer energy use, i.e., economics, policy analysis, psychology, and sociology. Five sections deal with topics such as the evolution of energy consumption in Western countries; problems in forecasting energy use; roles of governments, professional bodies, local authorities, utilities, etc.; research reports on why promising local initiatives appear to have a slow rate of acceptance; evaluations of local program results; studies of whether or not public subsidies encourage more rational use of energy; and patterns of everyday behavior of consumers. Each chapter begins with an abstract and concludes with a lengthy reference list. This well-documented volume is an important, virtually unique, addition to energy studies.?-Choice