Can Indifference Make the World Greener?

Johan Egebark and Mathias Ekström

No 2013:12, Research Papers in Economics from Stockholm University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We test whether people's tendency to stick with the default option can help save resources. In a natural field experiment we switch printers' default settings, from simplex to duplex printing, at a large Swedish university. The results confirm that roughly one third of all printing is determined by the default alternative, and hence daily paper consumption drops by 15 percent due to the change. The effect is immediate, lasts throughout the experimental period, and remains intact after six months. We also investigate how the more conventional method of encouraging people to save resources performs, and find it has no impact. Recent theoretical and empirical contributions indicate that the default effect works through recommendation, depends positively on the number of alternatives in the choice set, and is reinforced for difficult decisions. We demonstrate that the default option matter in a simple, non-dynamic, decision task with only two alternatives, and where people have been explicitly informed about the recommended course of action.

Keywords: Default option; Resource Conservation; Natural Field Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D03 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2013-09-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-env and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.ne.su.se/paper/wp13_12.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Can indifference make the world greener? (2016)
Working Paper: Can Indifference Make the World Greener? (2013)
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:hhs:sunrpe:2013_0012

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Papers in Economics from Stockholm University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Stockholm, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Anne Jensen ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).