NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF NUDGES: A CASE STUDY OF ENERGY USE SOCIAL COMPARISONS
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF NUDGES: A CASE STUDY OF ENERGY USE SOCIAL COMPARISONS
复制标题
NBER 工作论文系列助推的福利效应：能源使用社会比较的案例研究
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Judd B. Kessler
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hunt Allcott;Judd B. Kessler
“轻推”式的干预措施通常是根据其对行为的影响进行评估的，而不是社会福利。我们使用一个实地实验来衡量一个特别是政策相关的干预，家庭节能报告的福利效果。我们通过发送介绍性报告和使用激励兼容的多个价目表来衡量消费者福利，以确定继续该计划的支付意愿。我们结合联合收割机，实施成本和外部性减少的估计，进行全面的福利评估。我们发现，这种轻推增加了社会福利，虽然传统的计划评估方法夸大了福利收益的五倍。为了利用福利收益中显着的个人层面的异质性，我们开发了一个简单的机器学习算法，以最佳地瞄准轻推;这将使福利收益增加一倍以上。我们的研究结果强调，轻推，即使是那些非常有效的改变行为，需要根据其福利影响进行评估。纽约大学经济系。第四街，6楼纽约，纽约10012和NBER亨特。nyu.edu Kessler商业经济和公共政策系宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院3620 Locust Walk Philadelphia，PA 19104 judd. wharton.upenn.edu随机对照试验注册入口可在：https://www.dropbox.com/s/l2m8l55o3wnuexi/AllcottKessler_Replication.zip?复制代码可在： https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/713政策制定者和学者对“轻推”越来越感兴趣，例如信息提供、提醒、社会比较、默认选项和承诺合同，这些可以在不改变价格或选择集的情况下影响行为。助推被用来鼓励各种对个人有益和对社会有益的行为，如健康饮食、锻炼、器官捐赠、慈善捐赠、退休储蓄、洗手和环境保护。美国、英国和澳大利亚政府已经设立了“助推单位”，将这些想法注入政策过程。1越来越多的学术论文对各个领域的助推式干预进行了评估。2除了下面讨论的几个例外，助推通常是根据行为变化的幅度或成本效益进行评估的。当一种推动以低成本显著增加了积极行为时，政策制定者往往主张广泛采用。然而，全面的社会福利评估可能会产生不同的政策处方，因为被推动的人往往会经历两种典型评估所不考虑的利益和/或成本。首先，推动接受者通常会为了改变行为而付出代价。例如，戒烟的人在香烟上省钱，但放弃了吸烟带来的任何乐趣，健康饮食可能意味着花更多的钱买蔬菜，放弃美味的甜点。例如，看到带有吸烟相关疾病图形图像的香烟警告标签可能会令人不快，体重报告卡可能会让孩子感到内疚或羞耻。在Caplin（2003）和Loewenstein and O 'Donoghue（2006）的基础上，Glaeser（2006）认为，许多轻推本质上是情感税，减少了效用，但没有增加收入。本文介绍了一个社会福利评估家庭能源报告（HER），一页的信件，比较家庭的能源使用，其邻居，并提供节能提示。虽然HER只是一个案例研究，但它们是最突出和最常被研究的推动之一。Opower是领先的HER提供商，目前与9个国家的95家公用事业公司合作，定期向1500万家庭发送HER。学术界对人类健康报告有着浓厚的兴趣，包括舒尔茨等人（2007年）和诺兰等人（2008年）的开创性研究，以及对社会比较和其他“基于行为”的节能干预措施的许多后续评估。“社会和行为科学小组，发布了15项实验的结果，奥巴马总统签署了一项行政命令，指示联邦机构在“可能对社会福利和项目成果产生实质性改善”时使用行为洞察力（EOP 2015）。学术兴趣的一个指标是《轻推》（Thaler和Sunstein 2008）一书被引用超过5000次。当然，如果决策者正确地指定了一个“好”的行为来推动人们，这通常意味着行为的改变会为个人带来净收益。然而，这些净收益的大小最好是计算出来的，并与推动的其他成本和收益进行权衡。关于能源使用社会比较报告的学术论文包括Kantola，Syme和坎贝尔（1984），Allcott（2011，2015），Ayres，Raseman和Shih（2013），Costa和Kahn（2013），Dolan和Metcalfe（2013），Allcott和Rogers（2014）以及Sudarshan（2014）。德尔马斯、菲施莱因和阿森西奥（2013）回顾了156项已发表的实地试验，这些试验研究了社会比较和其他信息干预措施，以诱导节能。
"Nudge"-style interventions are typically evaluated on the basis of their effects on behavior, not social welfare. We use a field experiment to measure the welfare effects of one especially policy-relevant intervention, home energy conservation reports. We measure consumer welfare by sending introductory reports and using an incentive-compatible multiple price list to determine willingness-to-pay to continue the program. We combine this with estimates of implementation costs and externality reductions to carry out a comprehensive welfare evaluation. We find that this nudge increases social welfare, although traditional program evaluation approaches overstate welfare gains by a factor of five. To exploit significant individual-level heterogeneity in welfare gains, we develop a simple machine learning algorithm to optimally target the nudge; this would more than double the welfare gains. Our results highlight that nudges, even those that are highly effective at changing behavior, need to be evaluated based on their welfare implications. Hunt Allcott Department of Economics New York University 19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10012 and NBER hunt.allcott@nyu.edu Judd B. Kessler Department of Business Economics and Public Policy The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania 3620 Locust Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104 judd.kessler@wharton.upenn.edu A randomized controlled trials registry entry is available at: https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/713 Code for replication is available at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l2m8l55o3wnuexi/AllcottKessler_Replication.zip?dl=0 Policymakers and academics are increasingly interested in “nudges,” such as information provision, reminders, social comparisons, default options, and commitment contracts, which can affect behavior without changing prices or choice sets. Nudges are being used to encourage a variety of privately-beneficial and socially-beneficial behaviors, such as healthy eating, exercise, organ donation, charitable giving, retirement savings, hand washing, and environmental conservation. The US, British, and Australian governments have set up “nudge units” to infuse these ideas into the policy process.1 A growing list of academic papers evaluate nudge-style interventions in various domains.2 With only a few exceptions discussed below, nudges are typically evaluated based on the magnitude of behavior change or on cost effectiveness. When a nudge significantly increases a positive behavior at low cost, policymakers often advocate that it be broadly adopted. A full social welfare evaluation could produce different policy prescriptions, however, because people being nudged often experience two types of benefits and/or costs that typical evaluations do not consider. First, nudge recipients often incur costs in order to change behavior. For example, people who quit smoking save money on cigarettes but give up any enjoyment from smoking, and healthy eating might mean paying more for vegetables and giving up tasty desserts.3 Second, the nudge itself may directly impose positive or negative utility. For example, seeing cigarette warning labels with graphic images of smoking-related diseases can be unpleasant, and body weight report cards could make children feel guilty or shameful. Building on Caplin (2003) and Loewenstein and O’Donoghue (2006), Glaeser (2006) argues that many nudges are essentially emotional taxes that reduce utility but do not raise revenues. This paper presents a social welfare evaluation of Home Energy Reports (HERs), one-page letters that compare a household’s energy use to that of its neighbors and provide energy conservation tips. While HERs are just one case study, they are one of the most prominent and frequentlystudied nudges. Opower, the leading HER provider, now works with 95 utility companies in nine countries, sending HERs regularly to 15 million households. There has been significant academic interest in HERs, including seminal studies by Schultz et al. (2007) and Nolan et al. (2008) and many follow-on evaluations of social comparisons and other “behavior-based” energy conservation interventions.4 There are also a plethora of industry studies and regulatory evaluations of such In September 2015, the US “nudge unit,” the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, released results from 15 experiments, and President Obama signed an executive order that directs federal agencies to use behavioral insights when they “may yield substantial improvements in social welfare and program outcomes” (EOP 2015). One indicator of academic interest is that the book Nudge (Thaler and Sunstein 2008) has been cited more than 5000 times. Of course, if the policymaker has correctly designated a “good” behavior to nudge people toward, this typically means that the behavior change generates net benefits for the individual. However, the magnitude of these net benefits would ideally be calculated and weighed against a nudge’s other costs and benefits. Academic papers on energy use social comparison reports include Kantola, Syme, and Campbell (1984), Allcott (2011, 2015), Ayres, Raseman, and Shih (2013), Costa and Kahn (2013), Dolan and Metcalfe (2013), Allcott and Rogers (2014), and Sudarshan (2014). Delmas, Fischlein, and Asensio (2013) review 156 published field trials studying social comparisons and other informational interventions to induce energy conservation.
影响因子：
120.7
作者：
Pope, CA;Burnett, RT;Thurston, GD
通讯作者：
Thurston, GD