Impact of time-saving technology on household electricity consumption: An automatic vacuum cleaner distribution experiment in Japan

Time-saving technologies can raise people's standard of living by increasing their amount of disposable time. However, this may lead t the time-use rebound effect (TRE), wherein people reallocate their regained free time into actions that could affect energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this empirical study, we used a causal inference framework to test whether TRE occurs by conducting a distribution experiment of time-saving goods. We obtained data from a questionnaire about the daily time use of the households in our experiment. Our results showed that the random assignment of time-saving goods leads to a time reallocation of household behaviour. These goods increased electricity use, although their magnitude is relatively small at 1.83% of household electricity consumption.