Working Paper: NBER ID: w15939
Authors: Dora L. Costa; Matthew E. Kahn
Abstract: “Nudges” are being widely promoted to encourage energy conservation. We show that the popular electricity conservation “nudge” of providing feedback to households on own and peers’ home electricity usage in a home electricity report is two to four times more effective with political liberals than with conservatives. Political conservatives are more likely than liberals to opt out of receiving the home electricity report and to report disliking the report. Our results suggest that energy conservation nudges need to be targeted to be most effective.
Keywords: energy conservation; nudges; political ideology; environmentalism; randomized experiment
JEL Codes: Q41
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| politically liberal households (P36) | lower likelihood of opting out of HER (C92) |
| politically liberal households (P36) | higher reported value of HER (D46) |
| engagement in renewable energy programs (Q48) | reduction in electricity usage among political liberals (P18) |
| donating to environmental causes (F64) | reduction in electricity usage among political liberals (P18) |
| home energy report (HER) (Q48) | electricity consumption reduction (L94) |
| political ideology (P16) | response to home energy report (HER) (Q41) |