Uncertainty, Time Preference and Households’ Adoption of Rooftop Photovoltaic Technology

Household rooftop photovoltaic technology not only alleviate the reliance on fossil fuels of electric power industries that benefits to environmental protection, but also to enhance rural households' income and relieve poverty. This paper explores the influence of uncertainty and time preference on rural households' adoption of rooftop photovoltaic technology using field experiment in Shandong, China. The results show that (1) Most rural households are inclined to risk aversion and ambiguity aversion, half of those are present-biased households. (2) Risk preference, ambiguity preference and time preference obviously and positively impact the possibility of the adoption of rooftop photovoltaic technology, and time preference plays an essential positive moderating role in the impact of uncertainty preference on technology adoption. (3) The adoption of rooftop photovoltaic technology illustrates heterogeneity in different levels of household heads' education and household income, indicating that uncertainty and time preference could positively promote households' rooftop photovoltaic technology adoption in the households with medium educational level and medium and high total income. This research provides a micro view and policy recommendations for household rooftop photovoltaic technology promotion in rural China and sheds light upon how the government can formulate relevant policies to promote the technology