Do image concerns matter for the voluntary provision of public goods by firms? Field experimental evidence from carbon neutral courier services

Last registered on December 19, 2018

Pre-Trial

General Information

Title

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0002646

Initial registration date

December 21, 2017

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

December 22, 2017, 11:28 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

December 19, 2018, 5:15 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

Germany

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Carina Fugger

Affiliation

Centre for European Economic Research

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Kathrine Graevenitz

PI Affiliation

Centre for European Economic Research

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Martin Kesternich

PI Affiliation

Centre for European Economic Research

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2018-04-01

End date

2019-02-28

Keywords

Environment & Energy

Additional Keywords

Public good provision, corporate behavior, social norm

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

The overall aim of the experiment is to test the impact of self-and social image concerns on the likelihood that firms participate in a voluntary carbon offsetting program as an example for a public good. Though public good provision of firms can be observed empirically (e.g. CSR measures), little is known about the different motivations and the mechanics behind it. We contribute to the literature by implementing an experimental setting that provides the sender of a delivery the opportunity to offset the carbon emissions of this service by paying a price premium, while we vary the opportunity to signal this pro-environmental behavior to the recipient of the delivery.
As an extension we consider to introduce price variations in the second phase of the experiment conditional on the acceptance of our field partner.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Fugger, Carina, Kathrine Graevenitz and Martin Kesternich. 2018. "Do image concerns matter for the voluntary provision of public goods by firms? Field experimental evidence from carbon neutral courier services ." AEA RCT Registry. December 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2646-7.0

Former Citation

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

From the beginning of the intervention onwards customers ordering deliveries via the webshop of a courier service provider are randomly assigned to one of the three different treatments in which they remain during the intervention. Observations of the treatments are therefore made in parallel. The intervention is planned to last approximately 3 months. Based on previous orders we expect about 300 orders per month. So that a total of 900 observations (with equal shares of about 300 for each treatment) will be envisaged.

Intervention Start Date

2018-04-01

Intervention End Date

2018-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Proportion of orders with carbon offseting.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

In our experimental setting, we aim at testing the impact of self- and social image concerns on firm behavior. Decision behavior will be examined by exposing individuals to different instruments in a randomized control trial. The focus of the experiment are business clients. We implement treatments in a carbon offsetting context that differ in the opportunity to signal the pro-environmental behavior. In the baseline scenario (T1) participants can decide whether they want to offset the carbon emissions resulting from their delivery but without any possibility to directly signal pro-environmental behavior to the recipient of the delivery. In a second treatment (T2) we introduce a sticker which is automatically attached to the address label of the parcel to signal pro-environmental behavior. In the third treatment (F3), the sticker option is optional and has to be actively chosen by the client.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Clients are assigned to the treatments by a random mechanism based on their customer IDs.

Randomization Unit

clients

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

We observe orders in the webshop of a courier service provider over a duration of 3 month.

Sample size: planned number of observations

About 900 orders in the webshop.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

approximately 300 orders per treatment.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Unit: percentage of orders with carbon offseting; each of the two treatments is compared with the baseline treatment. alpha=0.05 Power=0.8 N=600 N per group=300 p1=0.01 --> minimum estimated effect size and experimental-group proportion: delta=0.0385 p2=0.0485

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB