| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Trial Title | Before Social Comparisons and Groundwater Extraction | After Social Comparisons and Groundwater Use |
| Field Abstract | Before A large literature examines the effect of social comparisons in nudging individuals toward pro-social behavior. This study builds on this literature by analyzing the salience of social comparisons in determining resource use behavior in the novel context of groundwater use among agricultural producers. We utilize a randomized control trail to measure how the provision of information comparing an individual’s past groundwater pumping to that of their neighbors affects the individual’s future groundwater use. | After A large literature examines the effect of social comparisons in nudging individuals towards conservation and pro-social behavior. This study builds on this literature by analyzing the salience of social comparisons in determining resource use behavior in the novel context of groundwater use among agricultural producers. We utilize a randomized controlled trail to measure how the provision of information comparing an individual’s past annual groundwater use to that of other groundwater users in their district affects the individual’s future groundwater use. |
| Field Last Published | Before October 18, 2019 10:52 AM | After October 28, 2019 11:09 AM |
| Field Experimental Design (Public) | Before We randomly assign eligible agricultural producers in the study area of eastern Colorado to either a treatment or control group. Eligibility is based on ownership of one or more wells in the study area. The treatment group of producers received a mailer during the beginning of the 2019 growing season which compared their 2018 groundwater use to other groundwater wells within their groundwater management district (GWMD). The mailer graphically provided treated producers with information comparing the groundwater use of up to three of the wells that they own to well-level mean groundwater use and the water use of the 20th percentile well in the GWMD. The mailer also indicated the percentile of the GWMD groundwater use distribution each of their wells fell within, using the following language “Comparing your 2018 water use to other wells in the W-Y GWMD, your well(s) recorded use higher than X% of wells.” Many agricultural producers in our study area operate multiple wells. The assignment to treatment or control groups occurred at the producer level, not the well level. Producers receiving the treatment mailers were provided with well-level comparison information, but due to size constraints on the mailer, recipients would see comparisons for a maximum of three wells. For producers that own or operate more than three wells, we limit the well-level comparison information to the three wells that utilized the most water in 2018. We also exclude wells that rank less than the 5th percentile among wells within their comparison group. Finally, some producers operate and own wells within multiple GWMDs. For these producers we determine their comparison group based on the GWMD the majority of their wells are located within. To assign agricultural producers to treatment or control we follow a block randomization methodology wherein we block at the GWMD level and on past water use compared to their comparison group’s average. Specifically, we generate a variable that indicates whether a producer’s 2018 water use averaged across all their wells exceeded the median well-level water use within their comparison group. This blocking protocol resulted in 14 mutually-exclusive blocking groups. Assignment of producers to treatment or control was conducted using R’s randomizr package, which assigned 487 producers into the treatment group and 489 into the control group. | After We randomly assigned eligible agricultural producers in the study area to either a treatment or control group. Eligibility was based on ownership of one or more wells in the study area. The treatment group of producers received a mailer during the beginning of the 2019 growing season which compared 2018 groundwater use of up to three wells that they own to groundwater wells within their groundwater management district (GWMD). The mailer graphically provided treated producers with information comparing the groundwater use of up to three of the wells that they own to well-level mean groundwater use and the groundwater use of the 20th percentile well in the GWMD. The mailer also indicated the percentile of the GWMD groundwater use distribution for each of their wells, using the following language “Comparing your 2018 water use to other wells in the YY GWMD, your well(s) recorded use higher than X% of wells.” Many agricultural producers in our study area operate multiple wells. The assignment to treatment or control groups occurred at the producer level, not the well level. Producers receiving the treatment mailers were provided with well-level comparison information, but due to size constraints on the mailer, recipients were provided comparisons for a maximum of three wells. For producers that own or operate more than three wells, we limit the well-level comparison information to the three wells that utilized the most water in 2018. We also exclude wells that rank less than the 5th percentile among wells within their comparison group. Finally, some producers operate and own wells within multiple GWMDs. For these producers we determine their comparison group based on the GWMD the majority of their wells are located within. To assign agricultural producers to treatment or control we follow a block randomization methodology wherein we block at the GWMD level and on past water use compared to their comparison group’s average . Specifically, we generate a variable that indicates whether a producer’s 2018 water use averaged across all their wells exceeded the median well-level water use within their comparison group. This blocking protocol resulted in 14 mutually-exclusive blocking groups. Assignment of producers to treatment or control was conducted using R’s randomizr package, which assigned 487 producers into the treatment group and 489 into the control group. |
| Field Planned Number of Observations | Before 976 individuals (groundwater well owners / agricultural producers) which operate over 3,000 irrigation wells | After 976 eligible groundwater well owners / producers in the study area, 487 of these eligible well owners / producers were randomly placed within the treatment group and received information comparing their groundwater use to that of other wells in their GWMD. Some well owners in our study area rent their land and associated wells to other producers while others farm their own land. Our research design elected to send mailers only to well owners (both producers and non-producers) given a lack of reliable data regarding which producers rent specific agricultural land parcels. The eligibility criteria for well owners / producers is defined based on the uniqueness of the mailing address. The contact database provided by the State of Colorado provides a contact address for 2,558 wells in the study area. However, many agricultural operations utilize multiple wells in their operation. As such, we limit our analysis to 976 unique agricultural operations in one of seven GWMDs, which we define by unique mailing addresses. |
| Field Additional Keyword(s) | Before Social Comparisons, groundwater, common pool resources | After social comparisons, groundwater, common pool resources, behavioral nudges |
| Field Intervention (Hidden) | Before | After We hypothesize that the provision of social comparison information will result in decreased 2019 groundwater use among agricultural producers that receive the social comparison. We further hypothesize that the social comparison will induce a greater reduction in groundwater use among those producers that utilized more water than their social comparison group in 2018. |
| Field Pi as first author | Before No | After Yes |
| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Document | Before |
After
Pre_Analysis.pdf
MD5:
23dfcb1f8242924a6c705b0e0fe237e0
SHA1:
44f9f39f3f351515a5cb3634d6adc8354722bcca
|
| Field Title | Before | After Analysis Plan |
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Field Document |
Value
Pre_Analysis.pdf
MD5:
8904c99c4daa27111c99bfe4b84fae44
SHA1:
7c44ba6e02d2deac35144d297e761298c3815e84
|
| Field Title | Value Analysis Plan |