Nudging energy efficiency audits: Evidence from a field experiment

Kenneth Gillingham and Tsvetan Tsvetanov

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2018, vol. 90, issue C, 303-316

Abstract: This paper uses a randomized field experiment to test how information provision leveraging social norms, salience, and a personal touch can serve as a nudge to influence the uptake of residential energy audits. Our results show that a low-cost carefully-crafted notecard can increase the probability of a household to follow through with an already scheduled audit by 1.1 percentage points on a given day. The effect is very similar across individuals with different political views, but households in rural areas display a substantially greater effect than those in urban areas. Our findings have important managerial and policy implications, as they suggest a cost-effective nudge for increasing energy audit uptake and voluntary energy efficiency adoption.

Keywords: Residential energy efficiency; Home energy audits; Non-price interventions; Information provision; Social norms; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 Q41 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:90:y:2018:i:c:p:303-316

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2018.06.009

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