ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to evaluate whether further energy-efficiency improvements in washing machines are likely to be accompanied by take-back effects. It identifies the research gap in the literature, i.e. the neglect of saturation effects in demand. The chapter explores some core background information on the case study of clothes washing. As washing machines are an example of continuous technological progress throughout the twentieth century, having coincided with a growth in laundry amounts, the occurrence of rebound effects as a consequence of further efficiency improvements is a plausible scenario. In most general terms, rebound effects can be defined as the consumption of a resource or the use of a technology in response to technological progress. The chapter describes how rebound effects have been defined and analyzes from the perspective of neoclassical consumer theory, which is the conventional approach in the literature. Different types of rebound effects are distinguished, depending on the scope of research, i.e. micro- or macro-level analyses.
