 Spreading the word! Effects of a randomized normative informational campaign on residential water conservationJose D. Lopez-Rivas Resource and Energy Economics, 2024, vol. 79-80 Abstract: This paper reports the direct and spillover effects of a norm-based informational campaign on residential water usage. I follow a two-stage randomized saturation design to produce and measure interference within utilities. A percentage of households within utilities is targeted to receive periodic reports comparing their usage to neighbors' average, while the rest are left untreated to measure spillover effects. I find targeted and spillover households reduced their water usage compared to the control group, with average reductions of 8.2 % and 5.6 %, respectively. I also find that the campaign’s effects depend on the number of targeted households within a utility, the feedback frequency, baseline water usage, and the proximity to other directly treated households. The findings shed light on the efficacy of leveraging social influence and norms to foster environmentally responsible behaviors. Keywords: Spillover effects; Pro-environmental behavior; Social norms; Randomized control trial (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:resene:v:79-80:y:2024:i::s0928765524000393 DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2024.101463 Access Statistics for this article Resource and Energy Economics is currently edited by J. F. Shogren and S. Smulders More articles in Resource and Energy Economics from Elsevier |
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