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Registration

Field Before After
Trial Status in_development completed
Last Published February 10, 2020 10:50 AM October 18, 2023 10:29 AM
Study Withdrawn No
Intervention Completion Date February 14, 2020
Data Collection Complete Yes
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) 41,474 individuals
Was attrition correlated with treatment status? No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations 41,474 individuals
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms 4,581 in "Baseline"; 4,543 in "N0"; 4,648 in "N0E0D0"; 4,675 in "N0E1D0"; 4,545 in "N0E0D1"; 4,643 in "N1"; 4,639 in "N1E0D0"; 4,603 in "N1E1D0"; 4,597 in "N1E0D1"
Public Data URL https://osf.io/3e5cn/
Is there a restricted access data set available on request? No
Program Files Yes
Program Files URL https://osf.io/3e5cn/
Data Collection Completion Date February 14, 2020
Is data available for public use? Yes
Keyword(s) Finance Finance
Building on Existing Work No
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Papers

Field Before After
Paper Abstract We conducted two large-scale, highly powered randomized controlled trials intended to encourage consumer debt repayments. In Study 1, we implemented five treatments vary- ing the design of envelopes sent to debtors. We did not find any treatment effects on re- sponse and repayment rates compared to the control condition. In Study 2, we varied the letters’ contents in nine treatments, implementing factorial combinations of social norm and (non-)deterrence nudges, which were either framed emotively or non-emotively. We find that all nudges are ineffective compared to the control condition and even tend to induce backfiring effects compared to the agency’s original letter. The results of this study contrast with the findings of other studies, which indicate that comparable nudges are highly effective. Thus, our results are more consistent with the literature suggesting that the success of nudging interventions is limited to certain conditions.
Paper Citation Holzmeister, F., Huber, J., Kirchler, M., & Schwaiger, R. (2022). Nudging Debtors to Pay Their Debt: Two Randomized Controlled Trials. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 198: 535-551.
Paper URL https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.04.006
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