Zero-Interest Green Loans and Home Energy Retrofits: Evidence from France

Ilya Eryzhenskiy (1, 2) , Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet (1, 2) , Mariona Segú (3)

1 ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech
2 CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement
3 CY - CY Cergy Paris Université

We evaluate a zero-interest green loan (ZIGL) program implemented in 2009 to encourage home energy retrofits in France. We find eligibility to the program had a 20-22% impact on the extensive margin of investment and 3-5% on the intensive one, but only in the first two years. The effect is most significant for low-income homeowners, which suggests credit constraints are an important barrier to energy efficiency. Using banking data to investigate the post-2011 failure, we find suggestive evidence that banks exploited prospective borrowers’ incomplete information to sell them their own loan products in- stead of a ZIGL.

Mots clés: home energy retrofit; green loan; energy efficiency; Q48; Q55; Q58; G51

Domaines: Environnement et Société

Ilya Eryzhenskiy, Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet, Mariona Segú. Zero-Interest Green Loans and Home Energy Retrofits: Evidence from France. 2023. ⟨hal-03585110v2⟩