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90 records from EconBiz based on author Name
1. Differences in how and why social comparisons and real-time feedback impact resource use: Evidence from a field experiment
Andor, Mark Andreas; Götte, Lorenz; Price, Michael Keith; Schulze Tilling, Anna; Tomberg, Lukas;2023
Type: Working Paper;
Availability:
Link 2. Differences in how and why social comparisons and real-time feedback impact resource use : evidence from a field experiment
abstractWe compare the behavior and welfare effects of two popular behavioral interventions for resource conservation. The first intervention is social comparison reports (SC), primarily providing consumers with information motivating behavioral change. The second intervention is real-time feedback (RTF), primarily providing consumers with information facilitating behavioral change. In a field experiment with around 1,000 participants, SC reduces water use per shower by 9.4%, RTF by 28.8%, and the combination of both interventions by 35.0%. Participants’ willingness to pay for RTF and the combination is higher than for SC. We find that all interventions enhance welfare.
Andor, Mark Andreas; Götte, Lorenz; Price, Michael Keith; Schulze Tilling, Anna; Tomberg, Lukas;2023
Type: Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature; Arbeitspapier; Working Paper;
Availability:
Link Link 3. COVID-19 and the Formation of Energy Conservation Routines : Disentangling the Relative Importance of Attention and Income Shocks
abstractWe examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the formation of energy conservation routines. To do so, we use data from two nationwide surveys of German households, conducted before and during the pandemic. Across the two survey waves, we document a significant increase in the likelihood respondents report engaging in a variety of energy conservation routines, such as unplugging electronic appliances after use and switching off lights when leaving a room. To understand what drives this result, we provide evidence that observed energy saving actions reflect an increased attention devoted to energy consumption while staying at home, as opposed to income shocks experienced during the pandemic. We also rule out an increase in pro-environmental concern during the pandemic as driver of our results. Rather, we find evidence consistent with a “finite pool of worry,” that might have even limited the impact of increased attention on the adoption of energy saving routines. In sum, our findings highlight the importance of consumer attention for the adoption of conservation routines to fight global climate change in a post-pandemic world
Löschel, Andreas; Razzolini, Laura; Werthschulte, Madeline; Price, Michael Keith;2023
Availability: Link Link
4. COVID-19 and the formation of energy conservation routines: Disentangling the relative importance of attention and income shocks
Löschel, Andreas; Price, Michael Keith; Razzolini, Laura; Werthschulte, Madeline;2022
Type: Working Paper;
Availability:
5. COVID-19 and the formation of energy conservation routines : disentangling the relative importance of attention and income shocks
abstractWe examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the formation of energy conservation routines. To do so, we use data from two nationwide surveys of German households, conducted before and during the pandemic. Across the two survey waves, we document a significant increase in the likelihood respondents report engaging in a variety of energy conservation routines, such as unplugging electronic appliances after use and switching off lights when leaving a room. To understand what drives this result, we provide evidence that observed energy saving actions reflect an increased attention devoted to energy consumption while staying at home, as opposed to income shocks experienced during the pandemic. We also rule out an increase in pro-environmental concern during the pandemic as driver of our results. Rather, we find evidence consistent with a “finite pool of worry,” that might have even limited the impact of increased attention on the adoption of energy saving routines. In sum, our findings highlight the importance of consumer attention for the adoption of conservation routines to fight global climate change in a post-pandemic world.
Löschel, Andreas; Price, Michael Keith; Razzolini, Laura; Werthschulte, Madeline;2022
Type: Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature; Arbeitspapier; Working Paper;
Availability:
Link Link Link Link Link 6. Using Tontines to Finance Public Goods : Back to the Future?
abstractThe tontine, which is an interesting mixture of group annuity, group life insurance, and lottery, has a peculiar place in economic history. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it played a major role in raising funds to finance public goods in Europe, but today it is rarely encountered outside of murder mysteries. This study provides a formal model of individual contribution decisions under a tontine mechanism. We analyze the performance of tontines and compare them to another popular fundraising scheme used today by both government and charitable fundraisers: lotteries. Our major theoretical results are that (i) the optimal tontine for agents with identical valuations of the public good consists of all agents receiving a fixed "prize" amount in the first period equal to a percentage of their total contribution, (ii) contribution levels in the optimal tontine are identical to those of risk-neutral agents in an equivalently valued single prize lottery, (iii) contribution levels for the optimal tontine are independent of risk-aversion, and thereby outperform lotteries when agents are risk-averse, (iv) if agents are sufficiently asymmetric in their valuation of the public good, equilibrium contribution levels are larger under tontines than any lottery. In particular, one can obtain full participation in the tontine mechanism compared to only partial participation in a lottery. These insights highlight that the tontine institution can be a useful tool for fundraisers in the future
Lange, Andreas; List, John A.; Price, Michael Keith;2022
Availability: Link
7. The Human Perils of Scaling Smart Technologies : Evidence from Field Experiments
abstractSmart-home technologies have been heralded as an important way to increase energy conservation. While in vitro engineering estimates provide broad optimism, little has been done to explore whether such estimates scale beyond the lab. We estimate the causal impact of smart thermostats on energy use via two novel framed field experiments in which a random subset of treated households have a smart thermostat installed in their home. Examining 18 months of associated high-frequency data on household energy consumption, yielding more than 16 million hourly electricity and daily natural gas observations, we find little evidence that smart thermostats have a statistically or economically significant effect on energy use. We explore potential mechanisms using almost four million observations of system events including human interactions with their smart thermostat. Results indicate that user behavior dampens energy savings and explains the discrepancy between estimates from engineering models, which assume a perfectly compliant subject, and actual households, who are occupied by users acting in accord with behavioral economists’ conjectures. In this manner, our data document a keen threat to the scalability of new user-based technologies
Brandon, Alec; Clapp, Christopher M.; List, John A.; Metcalfe, Robert D.; Price, Michael Keith;2022
Availability: Link Link
8. Robbing Peter to Pay Paul : Understanding How State Tax Credits Impact Charitable Giving
abstractDonations to charity are widely encouraged by policymakers through targeted tax incentives such as tax credits for contributions only to qualifying causes. We use a framed field experiment to test how the largest such program, Arizona’s state income tax credit for donations to qualifying charities, affects donation decisions in a modified dictator game. In the experiment, we randomize whether subjects receive detailed information about the tax credit program prior to selecting potential recipients and completing the allocation task. We also vary the number of charities that subjects can select as recipients along with the (tax-credit) qualifying vs. non-qualifying composition of the choice set. We find that average giving is unaffected by the information provision and composition of the choice set. However, subjects direct significantly more funds towards qualifying charities when provided information about the tax program; an effect that is enhanced when subjects select multiple recipients from lists that contain a mixture of qualifying and non-qualifying organizations. Our results underline the importance of including a portfolio of choices when studying the impact of targeted incentives because this makes it possible to identify a central feature of our data: participants “rob Peter” (non-qualifying charities) “to pay Paul” (qualifying charities)
Chatterjee, Chandrayee; Cox, James C.; Price, Michael Keith; Rundhammer, Florian;2022
Availability: Link
9. Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Charity : Evidence from a Field Experiment
abstractThis study develops theory and uses a door-to-door fundraising field experiment to explore the economics of charity. We approached nearly 5000 households, randomly divided into four experimental treatments, to shed light on key issues on the demand side of charitable fundraising. Empirical results are in line with our theory: in gross terms, our lottery treatments raised considerably more money than our voluntary contributions treatments. Interestingly, we find that a one standard deviation increase in female solicitor physical attractiveness is similar to that of the lottery incentive¡athe magnitude of the estimated difference in gifts is roughly equivalent to the treatment effect of moving from our theoretically most attractive approach (lotteries) to our least attractive approach (voluntary contributions)
Landry, Craig; Lange, Andreas; List, John A.; Price, Michael Keith; Rupp, Nicholas G.;2021
Availability: Link
10. Differences in How and Why Social Comparison and Real-Time Feedback Impact Resource Use : Evidence from a Field Experiment
abstractWe compare the behavior and welfare effects of two popular interventions for resource conservation. The first intervention is social comparison reports (SC), which primarily provide consumers with information motivating behavioral change. The second intervention is real-time feedback (RTF), which primarily provides consumers with information facilitating behavioral change. In a field experiment with around 1,000 participants, we directly observe the interventions' effects on participants' behavior. Further, we elicit participants' willingness to pay for receiving the interventions, both before and after having experienced them for one month. We find that SC leads to a reduction in water use per shower by 9.4%, RTF by 28.8%, and the combination (BOTH) by 35.0%. Our willingness to pay results show that all interventions are highly valued by participants and that willingness to pay for RTF and BOTH is significantly higher than for SC. Furthermore, we find that the valuation of the interventions do not change following one-month experience. Our results suggest that while both interventions improve welfare, providing consumers with information facilitating behavioral change achieves a higher impact and a slightly higher welfare increase than providing consumers with information motivating behavioral change
Andor, Mark Andreas; Götte, Lorenz; Price, Michael Keith; Schulze Tilling, Anna; Tomberg, Lukas;2023
Type: Arbeitspapier; Working Paper; Graue Literatur; Non-commercial literature;
Availability: Link Link