IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpceem/hal-05708114.html

The Behavioral Incidence of Nudges: Evidence from Social Norms and Locus of Control

Author

Listed:
  • Theo Savey

    (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier)

  • Gwenolé Le Velly

    (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier)

  • Sébastien Roussel

    (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier)

  • Alexandre Sauquet

    (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier)

Abstract

Nudges are widely used in public policy and experimental economics, yet many fail to achieve their intended effects. Beyond design considerations, recent studies point to heterogeneity in individuals' responsiveness to nudges. We argue that this heterogeneity gives nudges a behavioral incidence: just as economists have long studied how the costs of taxes and regulations fall unevenly across individuals, the effects of behavioral interventions may be concentrated among specific segments of the population rather than spread evenly across it. Yet little is known about who these individuals are and why. In this paper, we study one candidate determinant of this heterogeneity: a psychological trait known as locus of control (LOC). LOC refers to the extent to which individuals believe that life outcomes are determined by their own actions (internal locus) rather than by external forces such as luck or situational factors (externa

Suggested Citation

  • Theo Savey & Gwenolé Le Velly & Sébastien Roussel & Alexandre Sauquet, 2026. "The Behavioral Incidence of Nudges: Evidence from Social Norms and Locus of Control," CEE-M Working Papers hal-05708114, CEE-M, Universtiy of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpceem:hal-05708114
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05708114v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05708114v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:hal:wpceem:hal-05708114. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Laurent Garnier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lamplfr.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.