Green Neighbors, Greener Neighborhoods: Peer Effects in Residential Green Investments
Abstract: Utilizing a nearest-neighbor research design, I find that households exposed to green neighbors within 0.1 miles are 1.6 times more likely to make their homes green within a year than the unexposed. The exposure also increases the likelihood of multi-property owners greening their faraway secondary properties, emphasizing that information from neighbors, not neighborhood characteristics alone, drive the effect. Financial benefits of green homes—house prices, electricity savings, and regulatory incentives—strengthen peer effects, whereas pro-environmental household preferences do not. An information-cost-based theory model explains the findings and suggests that aligning green subsidies with peer effects can accelerate residential green investments.
Upcoming Presentations: Seminar at San Francisco Fed, 12th ABFER Annual Conference (Poster)
Awards: Semifinalist for 2024 FMA Annual Meeting Best Paper Awards, Best Paper Award - 14th Financial Markets and Corporate Governance Conference PhD Symposium
Selected Presentations: European Winter Finance Conference (EWFC) 2025, New York Fed and NYU Summer Climate Finance Conference (Poster), 2025 Baruch-JFQA Climate Finance and Sustainability Conference (Poster), CEPR-ESSEC-Luxembourg Conference on Sustainable Financial Intermediation, 2nd Women in Central Banking Workshop at Dallas Fed (Poster), 3rd CEMLA/Dallas Fed/IBEFA Financial Stability Workshop, 2024 Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making (Poster), AEA 2025 (Poster), FMA 2024, IWFSAS 2024 at UBC Sauder, 2024 CEMA Annual Conference at Boston University.