The Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Behavioral Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Energy Conservation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Allcott, Hunt; Rogers, Todd
• 署名单位: New York University; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.10.3003
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 3003-3037
• 关键词: social norms; INFORMATION; habituation; incentives; IMPACT

摘要

We document three remarkable features of the Opower program, in which social comparison-based home energy reports are repeatedly mailed to more than six million households nationwide. First, initial reports cause high-frequency action and backsliding, but these cycles attenuate over time. Second, if reports are discontinued after two years, effects are relatively persistent, decaying at 10-20 percent per year. Third, consumers are slow to habituate: they continue to respond to repeated treatment even after two years. We show that the previous conservative assumptions about post-intervention persistence had dramatically understated cost effectiveness and illustrate how empirical estimates can optimize program design.