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Field
Trial Status
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Before
on_going
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After
completed
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Field
Abstract
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Before
Following the Russian war against Ukraine, Germany is suffering from a gas supply shortage. As a result, energy prices are skyrocketing and both the government and public utilities undertake efforts to encourage energy savings of households. We run a natural field experiment in cooperation with one of the largest energy suppliers in Germany to test a reminder intervention among households participating in an energy savings program. As part of that program, all households receive 5 cents for each kilowatt-hour natural gas they save during the winter 2022/2023 in comparison to previous years. However literature has shown, that many interventions lose effectiveness after a few months. We thus randomize mailings during that energy savings program which remind households of their initial energy savings plans.
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After
Urged by the European Energy Crisis and the threatening consequences of severe natural gas shortages, energy providers launched gas-saving initiatives incorporating financial incentives to reduce residential natural gas consumption. In collaboration with one of Germany’s largest energy providers, we conducted a natural field experiment (N = 2,598) to evaluate the effectiveness of a behaviorally-guided co-design of such a gas-saving initiative by implementing two established behavioral instruments -- reminders of gas saving intentions and descriptive norm feedback. Our findings show limited effectiveness of the behavioral instruments during the high-price period. The feedback risks a ``boomerang effect” among households with above-average initial savings, who reduce their conservation efforts in response. The reminder does not significantly enhance savings in our main specifications, yet, realizes 1 percentage point savings in alternate models refining for outliers. Potential mechanisms include a significant intention-action gap and misperceived effectiveness of energy-saving actions, which are not alleviated by the reminder.
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Field
Last Published
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Before
February 07, 2023 11:13 AM
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After
October 28, 2025 12:53 PM
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Field
Study Withdrawn
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Before
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After
No
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Field
Intervention Completion Date
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Before
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After
March 31, 2023
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Field
Data Collection Complete
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Before
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After
Yes
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Field
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
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Before
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After
No
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Field
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
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Before
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After
N = 2,382
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Field
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
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Before
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After
Control group N = 1,199, treatment group N = 1,183.
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Field
Data Collection Completion Date
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Before
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After
April 01, 2023
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