Does the energy efficiency of buildings bring price premiums? Evidence from urban micro-level energy data

Energy efficient buildings can facilitate the achievement of sustainable development goals. However, higher investment costs are not conducive to the development of energy efficient buildings. It is not clear whether the energy efficiency of buildings (EEBs) bring price premiums that could offset the incremental costs of adopting green practice. In this paper, a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is constructed that takes into account the differences in regional and urban size to measure the EEBs in 54 cities of China during 2007–2018. We evaluate the influence of EEBs on price premiums by using fixed effects regression. We then adopt a moderated mediation model to explore the impact of industrial structure and the regional economic development level on this premium effect. The empirical results show that the cities’ EEBs is gradually improving, due to the fact that the level of technical progress in residential construction is rising. A 1% increase in house energy efficiency causes price premiums of 0.583%. Moreover, this premium effect is more obvious in cities with a high proportion of tertiary industries and economically developed areas. Considering energy consumption in household heating, the housing prices expectations were pulled down in heating cities, while the situation was reversed in non-heating cities. This study provides companies and governments with scientific evidence to promote EEBs.