Social norms and energy conservation beyond the US

Mark Andor, Andreas Gerster, Jörg Peters and Christoph Schmidt

No 714, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: The seminal studies by Allcott and Mullainathan (2010), Allcott (2011), and Allcott and Rogers (2014) suggest that social comparison-based home energy reports (HER) are a cost-effective non-price intervention to stimulate energy conservation. The present paper demonstrates the context-dependency of this result. We show that, outside the US, electricity consumption levels and carbon intensities are typically much lower and, hence, HER interventions can only become cost-effective when treatment effect sizes are substantially higher. Yet, our evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial in Germany suggests that effect sizes are actually much lower than in the US.

Keywords: social norms; energy demand; external validity; randomized field experiments; non-price interventions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D83 L94 Q41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-exp and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Social Norms and Energy Conservation Beyond the US (2020)
Working Paper: Social Norms and Energy Conservation Beyond the US (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:714

DOI: 10.4419/86788833

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