A Social Norm Nudge to Save More: A Field Experiment at a Retail Bank

Robert Dur, Dimitry Fleming, Marten van Garderen and Max van Lent
Additional contact information
Dimitry Fleming: ING Netherlands
Marten van Garderen: ING Netherlands
Max van Lent: Leiden University

No 19-063/I, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: A large fraction of households have very little savings buffer and are therefore vulnerable to financial shocks. We examine whether a social norm nudge can stimulate such households to save more by running a small-scale survey experiment and a large-scale field experiment at a retail bank in the Netherlands. The survey experiment shows that a social norm nudge increases intended savings. In line with this, we find in our field experiment that households who are exposed to the social norm nudge click more often on a link to a personal webpage where they can start or adjust an automatic savings plan. However, analyzing detailed bank data, we find no treatment effect on actual savings, neither in the short run nor in the long run. Our null findings are quite precisely estimated.

Keywords: household savings; field experiment; nudges; social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D14 G40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-08-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-eur, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/19063.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A social norm nudge to save more: A field experiment at a retail bank (2021)
Working Paper: A Social Norm Nudge to Save More: A Field Experiment at a Retail Bank (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20190063

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().