Publications
Gerster, A., Andor, M.A., Goette, L. (2025). Disaggregate Consumption Feedback, The Economic Journal, 2025; ueaf084, https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueaf084 (video by Latest Thinking)
Edenhofer, O., Gerster, A., Gessner, J., Myers, E., Pahle, M., Palmer, K. (2025). Targeted policies to break the deadlock on heating bans. Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02343-9. (Accepted manuscript) (Final published version)
Gerster, A., S. Lamp (2024), Energy Tax Exemptions and Industrial Production, The Economic Journal 134 (663): 2803–2834 .
[German Prize for Economics by the Joachim Herz Foundation 2022 (1st price in the category: junior researchers)] (Working paper version)
Gerster, A., M. Kramm (2024), Optimal Internality Taxation of Product Attributes, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 16 (3): 394-419 .
[IIPF Young Economist Award 2020} (Working paper version)
Andor, M., A. Gerster, J. Peters (2022). Information Campaigns for Residential Energy Conservation. European Economic Review, 144 (104094): 1-13 . (Link to paper)
Andor, M., A. Gerster, J. Peters, and C. M. Schmidt (2020). Social norms and energy conservation beyond the US. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (102351). (Working paper version)
[July 2020 research highlight in Nature Energy]
Andor, M., A. Gerster, K. Gillingham, M. Horvath (2020). Running a car costs much more than people think - stalling the uptake of green travel. Nature, 580: 453-455. (Link to paper)
[Coverage by Süddeutsche Zeitung, FAS, Spiegel, TAZ, WELT, WAZ, BR, TV quiz "Wer weiss denn sowas?"]
Frondel, M, A. Gerster, C. Vance (2020). The Power of Mandatory Quality Disclosure - Evidence from the German Housing Market. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 7 (1): 181-208. (Working paper version)
[Coverage by WELT]
Andor, M., A. Gerster, S. Sommer (2019). Consumer Inattention, Decision Heuristics and the Role of Energy Labels. The Energy Journal, 41 (1): 83-122. (Working paper version)
[USAEE/IAEE 2016 Best Working Paper Award]
Andor, M., M. Frondel, A. Gerster, S. Sommer (2019). Cognitive Reflection and the Valuation of Energy Efficiency. Energy Economics, 84 (Supplement 1).
Andor, M., A. Gerster, L. Götte (2019). How effective is the European Union energy label? Evidence from a real-stakes experiment. Environmental Research Letters, 14 (4). (Link to paper)
[Coverage by WELT; Video by WELT]
Gerster, A. (2016), Negative Price Spikes at Power Markets - The Role of Energy Policy. Journal of Regulatory Economics, 50 (3): 271–289. (Working paper version)
Working Papers
Willful Ignorance and Moral Behavior (with Raphael Epperson) [accepted at Management Science]
Consumers' willful ignorance about the consequences of their actions may impede moral behavior. We test this concern in a real-world context based on a laboratory experiment and field data. We find that willful ignorance about farming practices increases consumption of meat from intensive farming, both in the laboratory and at university canteens. Individuals who prefer to avoid information are particularly responsive to it, yet their behavioral response vanishes after two weeks. Both findings demonstrate the difficulty of addressing willful ignorance through information interventions.
The Alignment Effect of Auditing and its Welfare Implications (with Johannes Gessner and Michael Kramm) [R&R at Journal of Public Economics]
There is growing evidence that households often forgo profitable energy efficiency retrofits, partly due to inattention and imperfect information about their economic benefits. We conduct an incentivized survey experiment to evaluate both the effectiveness and the welfare implications of a widely used policy tool aimed at addressing this issue: providing information from an energy efficiency audit. In our incentivized experiment, participants in the treatment group receive personalized information about the potential cost savings from retrofitting their heating systems, while those in the control group do not receive such information. Our results show that providing this information does not increase the average willingness to pay for a retrofit. However, it enhances welfare – by approximately EUR 43 per household – by better aligning households’ decisions to retrofit with their actual cost savings.
Selected Work in Progress
Climate Policy Uncertainty and Household Investment (with Paul Grass, Kathrin Kaestner, and Michael Kramm)
Premium Programs for Energy Conservation: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Experiment (with Manuel Frondel, Kathrin Kaestner, Michael Pahle, and Puja Singhal)
The Alignment Effect of Auditing - Evidence from Energy Efficiency Retrofits (with Johannes Gessner and Michael Kramm)
The Impact of Carbon Trading on Industry: Evidence from German Manufacturing Firms (with Jakob Lehr, Sebastian Pieper, and Ulrich J. Wagner)
Warm-Glow versus Cold-Prickle Revisited: Evidence from the Field (with Mark A. Andor, Michael K. Price, and Lukas Tomberg)
Locus of Control and Pro-social Behavior (with Mark A. Andor, James C. Cox, Michael K. Price, Stephan Sommer, Lukas Tomberg)
Carbon Footprints of European Manufacturing Jobs: Stylized Facts and Implications for Climate Policy (with Ulrich J. Wagner and several co-authors)