TY - JOUR
T1 - Social comparison nudges without monetary incentives
T2 - Evidence from home energy reports
AU - Myers, Erica
AU - Souza, Mateus
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful for the support from the Levenick iSEE Fellowship. Souza is also grateful for the financial support from CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Brazil). We thank Bruce Mikos, Bryan Johnson, Morgan White and all University of Illinois staff who were helpful with data provisioning and overall feedback. We are also thankful for excellent research assistance from Eli Yu, and for helpful comments from Hunt Allcott, Severin Borenstein, Peter Christensen, Tatyana Deryugina, Don Fullerton, Madhu Khanna, Julian Reif, Catherine Wolfram, and seminar participants at the University of Illinois, 2018 Midwest Energy Fest, 2018 Mannheim Energy Conference, and 2018 AAEA Meetings. This research has been pre-registered at the American Economic Association's registry for randomized controlled trials, with ID number AEARCTR-0002398. The authors have no material financial interests related to this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2020/5
Y1 - 2020/5
N2 - We explore the mechanisms driving the effectiveness of a widely-used behavioral intervention that reduces energy consumption by repeatedly mailing social comparison-based home energy reports (HERs) to households. With a randomized controlled trial, we introduce HERs in a college residence, where tenants do not pay energy bills. Our results indicate that HERs induced almost no behavioral changes for heating demand, with precise estimates that allow us to rule out thermostat changes greater than 0.36 °F. To the extent that our findings can be extrapolated to other non-dormitory residential contexts, this suggests that behavioral channels, such as competitiveness, social norms, or moral suasion, may not motivate conservation in the absence of direct monetary incentives.
AB - We explore the mechanisms driving the effectiveness of a widely-used behavioral intervention that reduces energy consumption by repeatedly mailing social comparison-based home energy reports (HERs) to households. With a randomized controlled trial, we introduce HERs in a college residence, where tenants do not pay energy bills. Our results indicate that HERs induced almost no behavioral changes for heating demand, with precise estimates that allow us to rule out thermostat changes greater than 0.36 °F. To the extent that our findings can be extrapolated to other non-dormitory residential contexts, this suggests that behavioral channels, such as competitiveness, social norms, or moral suasion, may not motivate conservation in the absence of direct monetary incentives.
KW - Behavioral nudges
KW - Energy conservation
KW - Moral suasion
KW - Social norms
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jeem.2020.102315
DO - 10.1016/j.jeem.2020.102315
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85081116571
SN - 0095-0696
VL - 101
JO - Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
JF - Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
M1 - 102315
ER -