Tell Me Something I Don't Already Know: Informedness and the Impact of Information Programs

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Byrne, David P.; La Nauze, Andrea; Martin, Leslie A.
• 署名单位: University of Melbourne; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00695
• 发表日期: 2018-07
• 页码: 510-527
• 关键词: social comparisons; selection bias; BEHAVIOR; strategies; demand; NORMS

摘要

We document how imperfect information generates heterogeneous effects in information treatments with personalized high-frequency feedback and peer comparisons. In our field experiment in retail electricity, we find that high- and low-energy users symmetrically underestimate and overestimate their relative energy use pretreatment. Responses to personalized feedback, however, are asymmetric. Households that overestimate their relative use and low users both respond by consuming more. These boomerang effects provide evidence that peer-comparison information programs, even those coupled with normative comparisons, are not guaranteed to lead to increases in prosocial behavior.