Do Behavioral Nudges Interact with Prevailing Economic Incentives? Pairing Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Water Consumption
Daniel Brent and
Casey Wichman
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jhih-Shyang Shih and
Dallas Burtraw
No 22-02, RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future
Abstract:
Behavioral nudges are popular instruments to promote prosocial behavior, particularly in settings with unpriced externalities. Nudges may interact with existing incentives, however, by crowding out intrinsic motivation to conserve or by increasing price salience. We investigate the interaction of prices and nudges for water conservation in two experiments in neighboring utilities. First, we layer randomized behavioral treatments on top of price variation driven by lot-size thresholds that exogenously assign marginal prices. Second, we explore whether behavioral treatments affect consumers’ price elasticities. Our findings suggest that nudges do not induce more conservation at higher prices, nor do they increase price sensitivity.To read the full working paper, click "Download" above.
Date: 2022-01-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rff.org/documents/3284/Brent_and_Wichman_-_WP_22-2.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
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:rff:dpaper:dp-22-02
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Resources for the Future ().