effects of these changes with a very disaggregated car fleet.
In the second part of this paper, we outlined the psychological mechanisms and factors decisive for con- sumers’ willingness to change purchase behavior under feebate systems (Section 3) which was empirically investi- gated by a survey of Swiss households on car purchase behavior (Section 4). The results for the relevant sample of potential new car buyers were presented in Section 5. In general, the respondents showed some, but limited, willingness to change their car choice behavior in order to obtain a rebate. Upon deeper analysis, it was revealed that the potential new car buyers who preferred comparatively smaller cars exhibited higher willingness to reduce engine and car size. This is in line with our hypothesis. Contrary to a priori expectations, respondents with preference for larger cars tended to state higher willingness to change to even larger cars than those with preference for smaller cars.
There was a medium level of general acceptance of feebates among various other measures to reduce con- sumption of fuel and energy. Feebates clearly ranked above rather unpopular measures such as increased fuel taxes. Only measures that do not require behavioral changes of consumers (e.g., provision of information on effi