Social Comparisons, Household Water Use, and Participation in Utility Conservation Programs: Evidence from Three Randomized Trials
Social Comparisons, Household Water Use, and Participation in Utility Conservation Programs: Evidence from Three Randomized Trials
复制标题
DOI：
10.1086/683427
复制
发表时间：
2015-12-01
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Olsen, Skylar
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brent, Daniel A.;Cook, Joseph H.;Olsen, Skylar
监管和政治上的反对往往迫使水务公司依靠非价格方法来管理水需求。在三个不同的供水设施使用随机现场实验，我们评估社会比较，以减少需求的有效性，并分析其与现有的保护计划的相互作用。在两个公用事业，该计划减少了5%的消费量，在整个基线用水分布的显着异质性。在第三种效用中，我们没有检测到统计学显著的平均治疗效果。社会规范似乎并没有排挤现有的保护计划：治疗的家庭更有可能参加额外的计划。在具有显著处理效果的两个公用事业中，较高的保护计划参与率在一个公用事业中占节水的很小一部分（3%），在第二个公用事业中占适度的一部分（9%-25%）。我们讨论的证据表明，社会规范可能会导致参与的特定类型的消费者，公用事业希望针对。
Regulation and political opposition often force water utilities to rely on nonprice approaches to manage water demand. Using randomized field experiments in three different water utilities, we assess the effectiveness of social comparisons to reduce demand and analyze their interaction with existing conservation programs. In two utilities, the program decreases consumption by 5%, with significant heterogeneity across the distribution of baseline water use. We do not detect a statistically significant average treatment effect in the third utility. Social norms do not appear to crowd out existing conservation programs: treated households are more likely to participate in additional programs. Of the two utilities with significant treatment effects, higher participation rates in conservation programs account for a very small fraction of water savings (3%) in one utility and a modest fraction (9%-25%) in the second. We discuss evidence that social norms may induce participation among the specific type of consumers that utilities wish to target.