Evaluating Behaviorally Motivated Policy: Experimental Evidence from the Lightbulb Market

Allcott, Hunt; Taubinsky, Dmitry

doi:10.1257/aer.20131564

Cited by 366 publications

(260 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…Chetty et al 2009, Tiefenbeck et al 2018. This can cause individuals to overlook differences in usage cost (Allcott and Taubinsky 2015) and excessively focus on the upfront price. It can thus lead individuals to favor energyinefficient products, even though it is not even in their own self interest, and compound problems of environmental pollution and climate change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies have demonstrated the potential of information to overcome salience bias, without focusing on energy labels. For instance, Allcott and Taubinsky (2015) conduct an incentive-compatible field experiment and find that information on lifetime cost increases the WTP for CFL over incandescent light bulbs. In addition, Camilleri and Larrick (2014) find that consumers purchase energy-efficient cars more often when lifetime operating cost are displayed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How effective is the European Union energy label? Evidence from a real-stakes experiment

Andor

Gerster

Götte

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Imperfect information and inattention can lead consumers to undervalue the energy efficiency of products, contributing to growing environmental problems and climate change. To nudge individuals towards energy efficiency, environmental certification schemes, such as the European Union (EU) energy label, present grade-like efficiency classes. In a real-stakes randomized controlled trial, we contrast this approach with a control condition that gives no energy-related information and an alternative treatment condition that provides detailed information on the lifetime cost of energy-using durables. Our results show that the EU energy label does not increase demand for energy-efficient products over a control condition. By contrast, lifetime-cost information increases the willingness-topay for energy efficiency considerably.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How effective is the European Union energy label? Evidence from a real-stakes experiment

Andor

Gerster

Götte

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Low financial incentives can inadvertently communicate to an actor that the behavior is not valuable, counteracting or "crowding out" the actor's intrinsic motivations and resulting in decreased conservation (Gneezy et al 2011). Incentives could also simply fail because the actor is unaware of the potential benefit (e.g., savings from energy-efficient light bulbs; Allcott & Taubinsky 2015) or because there is an actual or perceived inability to change the behavior (Bandura 1994) ( Figure 3).…”

Section: Barriersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Setting the online slider-bar to start at 100% cost-share (on a range of 0%-100%) in an online auction for conservation contracts that require farmers to adopt conservation practices resulted in higher bids than setting the slider bar initially at 0% (Messer et al 2015) (Figure 3). These type of nudges are attractive because they may be less costly and better preserve freedom of choice than regulations or price-based incentives (e.g., taxes, subsidies) (Allcott & Taubinsky 2015).…”

Section: Rationale and Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Advancing Conservation by Understanding and Influencing Human Behavior

Reddy

Montambault

Masuda

et al. 2016

CONSERVATION LETTERS

219

191

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Behavioral sciences can advance conservation by systematically identifying behavioral barriers to conservation and how to best overcome them. Behavioral sciences have informed policy in many other realms (e.g., health, savings), but they are a largely untapped resource for conservation. We propose a set of guiding questions for applying behavioral insights to conservation policy. These questions help define the conservation problem as a behavior change problem, understand behavioral mechanisms and identify appropriate approaches for behavior change (awareness, incentives, nudges), and evaluate and adapt approaches based on new behavioral insights. We provide a foundation for the questions by synthesizing a wide range of behavior change models and evidence related to littering, water and energy conservation, and land management. We also discuss the methodology and data needed to answer these questions. We illustrate how these questions have been answered in practice to inform efforts to promote conservation for climate risk reduction. Although more comprehensive research programs to answer these questions are needed, some insights are emerging. Integrating two or more behavior change approaches that target multiple, context-dependent factors may be most successful; however, caution must be taken to avoid approaches that could undermine one another (e.g., economic incentives crowding out intrinsic incentives).

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“…Making these calculations can be burdensome for consumers, as suggested by the results presented in Allcott and Taubinsky (2015). Participants of an online randomized control trial in the US could choose between light bulbs with different levels of energy efficiency.…”

Section: Energy and Investment Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Energy and Investment Literacy for Residential Electricity Demand and End-use Efficiency

et al. 2017

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThis paper estimates the level of transient and persistent efficiency in the use of electricity in Swiss households using the newly developed generalized true random effects model (GTREM). An unbalanced panel dataset of 1, 994 Swiss households from 2010 to 2014 collected via a household survey is used to estimate an electricity demand frontier function. We further investigate whether energy and investment literacy have an influence on the household electricity consumption. The results show significant inefficiencies in the use of electricity among Swiss households, both transient (11%) and persistent (22%). We note that the high persistent inefficiency is indicative of structural problems faced by households and systematic behavioral shortcomings in residential electricity consumption. These results indicate a considerable potential for electricity savings and thus reaching the reduction targets defined by the Swiss federal council as part of the Energy Strategy 2050, wherein end-use efficiency improvement is one of the main pillars. The results support a positive role of energy and, in particular, investment literacy in reducing household electricity consumption. Policies targeting an improvement of these attributes could help to improve efficiency in the use of energy within households.

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Evaluating Behaviorally Motivated Policy: Experimental Evidence from the Lightbulb Market

Cited by 366 publications

References 62 publications

How effective is the European Union energy label? Evidence from a real-stakes experiment

How effective is the European Union energy label? Evidence from a real-stakes experiment

Advancing Conservation by Understanding and Influencing Human Behavior

The Role of Energy and Investment Literacy for Residential Electricity Demand and End-use Efficiency

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