IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/natura/00669.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Testing for crowd out in social nudges: Evidence from a natural field experiment in the market for electricity

Author

Listed:
  • Alec Brandon
  • John List
  • Robert Metcalfe
  • Michael Price
  • Florian Rundhammer

Abstract

This study considers the response of household electricity consumption to social nudges during peak load events. Our investigation considers two social nudges. The first targets conservation during peak load events, while the second promotes aggregate conservation. Using data from a natural field experiment with 42,100 households, we find that both social nudges reduce peak load electricity consumption by 2 to 4% when implemented in isolation and by nearly 7% when implemented in combination. These findings suggest an important role for social nudges in the regulation of electricity markets and a limited role for crowd out effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Alec Brandon & John List & Robert Metcalfe & Michael Price & Florian Rundhammer, 2019. "Testing for crowd out in social nudges: Evidence from a natural field experiment in the market for electricity," Natural Field Experiments 00669, The Field Experiments Website.
    • Handle: RePEc:feb:natura:00669
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00669.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Montgomery, W. David, 1972. "Markets in licenses and efficient pollution control programs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 395-418, December.
    2. Baumol,William J. & Oates,Wallace E., 1988. "The Theory of Environmental Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521322249.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Wenjie & Ida, Takanori & Shimada, Hideki, 2020. "Default effect versus active decision: Evidence from a field experiment in Los Alamos," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    2. Brülisauer, Marcel & Goette, Lorenz & Jiang, Zhengyi & Schmitz, Jan & Schubert, Renate, 2020. "Appliance-specific feedback and social comparisons: Evidence from a field experiment on energy conservation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    3. Ghesla, Claus & Grieder, Manuel & Schmitz, Jan & Stadelmann, Marcel, 2020. "Pro-environmental incentives and loss aversion: A field experiment on electricity saving behavior," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. d'Adda, Giovanna & Galliera, Arianna & Tavoni, Massimo, 2020. "Urgency and engagement: Empirical evidence from a large-scale intervention on energy use awareness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frans P. Vries & Nick Hanley, 2016. "Incentive-Based Policy Design for Pollution Control and Biodiversity Conservation: A Review," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(4), pages 687-702, April.
    2. Montero, Juan-Pablo, 1998. "Marketable pollution permits with uncertainty and transaction costs," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 27-50, March.
    3. Ger Klaassen & Finn Førsund & Markus Amann, 1994. "Emission trading in Europe with an exchange rate," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 4(4), pages 305-330, August.
    4. Stavins, Robert, 2001. "Lessons from the American Experiment with Market-Based Environmental Policies," Working Paper Series rwp01-032, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Alessandra Casella, 1999. "Tradable deficit permits: efficient implementation of the Stability Pact in the European Monetary Union," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 14(29), pages 322-361.
    6. Berta, Nathalie, 2015. "Prix versus quantités : les contorsions du marché du carbone européen," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 18.
    7. Robert N. Stavins, 2011. "The Problem of the Commons: Still Unsettled after 100 Years," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 81-108, February.
    8. Chung, Sung H. & Weaver, Robert D. & Friesz, Terry L., 2013. "Strategic response to pollution taxes in supply chain networks: Dynamic, spatial, and organizational dimensions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 314-327.
    9. Olmstead, Sheila M. & Stavins, Robert N., 2008. "Comparing Price and Non-price Approaches to Urban Water Conservation," Discussion Papers dp-08-22, Resources For the Future.
    10. Luca Taschini, 2010. "Environmental Economics and Modeling Marketable Permits," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 17(4), pages 325-343, December.
    11. Dogterom, Nico & Ettema, Dick & Dijst, Martin, 2018. "Behavioural effects of a tradable driving credit scheme: Results of an online stated adaptation experiment in the Netherlands," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 52-64.
    12. Charles Raux, 2011. "Downstream Emissions Trading for Transport," Transportation Research, Economics and Policy, in: Werner Rothengatter & Yoshitsugu Hayashi & Wolfgang Schade (ed.), Transport Moving to Climate Intelligence, chapter 0, pages 209-226, Springer.
    13. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Economics," Discussion Papers dp-04-54, Resources For the Future.
    14. Lori Bennear & Robert Stavins, 2007. "Second-best theory and the use of multiple policy instruments," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 37(1), pages 111-129, May.
    15. Charles Raux, 2008. "Tradable driving rights in urban areas: their potential for tackling congestion and traffic-related pollution," Post-Print halshs-00185012, HAL.
    16. Robert N. Stavins, 1998. "What Can We Learn from the Grand Policy Experiment? Lessons from SO2 Allowance Trading," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 69-88, Summer.
    17. Arbex, Marcelo & Behringer, Stefan & Trudeau, Christian, 2017. "Optimal tax policy under heterogeneous environmental preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 79-82.
    18. Weber, Thomas A. & Neuhoff, Karsten, 2010. "Carbon markets and technological innovation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 115-132, September.
    19. Woodward, Richard T., 2011. "Double-dipping in environmental markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 153-169, March.
    20. Mansur, Erin T. & Olmstead, Sheila M., 2012. "The value of scarce water: Measuring the inefficiency of municipal regulations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 332-346.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:feb:natura:00669. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Joe Seidel). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.