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81.
Nudge: The author conducted a natural field experiment on conditional cooperation where cross-country skiers in two Swedish ski resorts were faced with the decision of whether or not to contribute to ski track funding. Ski-tracks in Sweden are public goods and it is not legal to charge for access to such facilities.
The results indicate that a higher share of the treatment group contribute (25%) than the control (21%); that is to say that the share of subjects contributing was significantly greater in the group receiving information about others’ behavior than in the group that does not.
Tags: social proof / charitable donations
Source: Heldt (2005), 'Conditional cooperation in the field: Cross-country skiers' behavior in Sweden', Working Paper
82.
Nudge: The authors ran a door-to-door
field experiment in Ohio to test the efficacy of an anchor on charitable donations. Of the 640 people asked for donations, 20% gave money.
Of these 128, those told of the $20 anchor donated significantly more than the
control. They also found that adding the phrase “even a penny would help” more than doubled the compliance rate from 15% in the control group to 34%.
Tags: charitable giving / anchoring
Source: Fraser, Hite & Sauer (1988), ‘Increasing Contributions in Solicitation Campaigns: The Use of Large and Small Anchorpoints’, Journal of Consumer Research
83.
Nudge: The authors conducted a field
experiment looking at the effect of matching contribution offer in conjunction
with legitimization of paltry contributions (“even a penny would help”) in a
door-to-door (n=320) charitable solicitation context. Results indicated that the matching funds offer, paired with legitimization of paltry donations, increased both compliance rates and donation sizes and generated greater revenues than either tactic used singly.
Tags: charitable giving
Source: Fraser & Hite (2006), ‘The Effect of Matching Contribution Offers and Legitimization of Paltry Contributions on Compliance’, Journal of Applied Social Psychology
84.
Nudge: The authors ran a fund-raising
field experiment to see the effect of providing social information on contribution
rates (n=225). There were three conditions; (i) Donors who were told
information about another donor’s contribution which is above the donor’s previous (last year’s) contribution, (ii) donors
told information about another donor’s contribution below the donor’s previous one and (iii) donors told information
about another donor’s contribution which matched
their own previous one. The messages were in the form “We had another member,
they contributed $X. How much would you like to pledge today?” They find that respondents change their contribution in the direction of the social information; increasing their contribution when the social information is above their previous contribution, and decreasing their contribution when the social information is below.
Tags: anchoring / social proof / charitable giving
Source: Croson & Shang (2008), 'The impact of downward social information on contribution decisions', Experimental Economics
85.
Nudge: This paper looks at the efficacy
of many different kinds of energy efficiency labelling (3 examples
included) on preferences for household appliances. Using a choice experiment
with many labeling treatments, the authors find that simple information on the
economic value of saving energy was the most important element guiding more
cost-efficient investments in appliance energy efficiency, with information on
physical energy use and carbon dioxide emissions having additional but lesser
importance. 
The authors note that the degree to which the current EnergyGuide label guided cost efficient decisions depends importantly on the discount rate assumed appropriate for the analysis. Using individual discount rates elicited in their study, they find that the current EnergyGuide label came very close to guiding cost-efficient decisions, on average. However, using a uniform five percent rate for discounting—which was much lower than the average individual elicited rate—the EnergyGuide label led to choices that result in a one-third undervaluation of energy efficiency.
Labels that not only nudged people with dispassionate monetary or physical information, but also endorsed a model (Energy Star) or gave a suggestive grade to a model (A-G), had a substantial impact in encouraging the choice of appliances with higher energy efficiency.
Tags: energy efficiency / labelling
Source: Newell & Siikamäki (2013), 'Nudging Energy Efficiency Behavior: The Role of Information Labels', Discussion Paper
86.
Nudge: This paper conducts two field experiments to test inter-temporal choices in charitable giving by varying the timing of commitment and payment. Monthly donors were asked to increase their contributions (1) immediately, (2) in one month, (3) in two months.
The results are consistent between the two field experiments; firstly, mean increases in donations are significantly higher when donors are asked to commit to future donations. Secondly, follow-up data shows that the treatment effect is persistent, making the strategy highly profitable to the charity. Finally, there is evidence of heterogeneity in the response to different timelags, indicating differences in inter-temporal choices among donors.
Tags: charitable donations / inter-temporal choice
Source: Breman (2011), ‘Give more tomorrow: two field experiments on altruism and intertemporal choice’, Journal of Public Economics
87.
Nudge: This paper argues that the low volition and collective nature of tax-funded benefits are primary causes of low satisfaction with tax payment.
Three studies suggest that providing people with the opportunity to allocate some of their tax payment (here, 10%) across budgets provided by the billing party introduces (i) volition into the payment process and (ii) increases the perceived benefit associated with tax payment. As a result, taxpayers are significantly more satisfied with paying taxes, despite the fact that their payment amount remains completely unchanged.
In addition to enhancing taxpayer satisfaction, an allocation program, if well-implemented, could also provide some hope for correcting existing lack of voice, address disconnects between spending and taxpayers’ priorities, and increase civic engagement in general.
Tags: tax / volition of payment
Source: Lamberton (2013), 'A Spoonful of Choice: How Allocation Increases Satisfaction with Tax Payments', Journal of Public Policy and Marketing
88.
Nudge: The authors tested differ letter framings on the tax reported behaviour of over 7,300 sole proprietors in the U.K. The different treatments were offers of assistance with tax forms, rational argument and threats of audit. By and large the treatments proved effective at encouraging taxpayers to declare more, with the threat messages being the most effective.
Tags: framing / tax
Source: Hasseldine et al. (2007) ‘Persuasive Communications: Tax Compliance Enforcement Strategies for Sole Proprietors’, Contemporary Accounting Research
89.
Nudge: A field experiment in Minnesota in 1994 tested the efficacy of normative messages in letters to taxpayers. There were 3 conditions in total; 2 treatments and a control, each consisting of 20,000 people.
The first treatment group received the standard tax letter plus a rational appeal for paying their taxes (“your taxes fund local services such as X, Y, Z”). The second treatment received the standard letter plus a social normative message (“People who file tax reports report correctly and pay voluntarily 93% of the income taxes they owe. Although some taxpayers owe money because of minor errors, a small number of taxpayers who cheat owe the bulk of unpaid taxes”).
The results found no significant effect of the normative messages on tax declarations.
Tags: framing / tax / normative messages
Source: Blumenthal et al. (2001) ‘Do Normative Appeals Affect Tax Compliance? Evidence from a Controlled Experiment in Minnesota’, National Tax Journal
90.
Nudge: The authors used financial incentives to encourage healthy lifestyles in a workplace (n=406) in Northern Ireland over a 12 week period, with a follow-up check after 6 months. The participants were put either into a Incentive group (Treatment, n=199) or No-incentive (Control, n=207). Those in the Incentive group had to monitor their physical activity levels and used a loyalty card to collect points and earn rewards. The control group used their loyalty cards to monitor their activity level but could not earn points or rewards.
The results found no significant difference between the groups in terms of minutes of physical activity recorded either after 12 weeks or after 6 months.
Tags: physical activity / financial incentives
Source: Hunter et al. (2013) ‘Physical activity loyalty cards for behavior change: a quasi-experimental study’, American Journal of Preventative Medicine
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