IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v10y2018i1p240-67.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moral Suasion and Economic Incentives: Field Experimental Evidence from Energy Demand

Author

Listed:
  • Koichiro Ito
  • Takanori Ida
  • Makoto Tanaka

Abstract

Firms and governments often use moral suasion and economic incentives to influence intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for economic activities. To investigate persistence of such interventions, we randomly assign households to moral suasion and dynamic pricing that stimulate energy conservation during peak-demand hours. We find significant habituation and dishabituation for moral suasion—the treatment effect diminishes after repeated interventions but can be restored to the original level by a sufficient time interval between interventions. Economic incentives induce larger treatment effects, little habituation, and significant habit formation. Our results suggest moral suasion and economic incentives produce substantially different short-run and long-run policy impacts.

Suggested Citation

  • Koichiro Ito & Takanori Ida & Makoto Tanaka, 2018. "Moral Suasion and Economic Incentives: Field Experimental Evidence from Energy Demand," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 240-267, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:10:y:2018:i:1:p:240-67
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.20160093
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20160093
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=pZsVmHHHm6I3wZZTk8mPpRViOORG03dy
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=ZQ119y2u60UEOalillrMdZrU5TDRkT9C
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=LB0fdZa9DLqQckLT2KaBVN7-gthRrBpH
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kotchen, Matthew J. & Moore, Michael R., 2007. "Private provision of environmental public goods: Household participation in green-electricity programs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Stefano DellaVigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier, 2012. "Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 1-56.
    3. Matthew J. Kotchen, 2006. "Green Markets and Private Provision of Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(4), pages 816-845, August.
    4. Kingma, Bruce Robert, 1989. "An Accurate Measurement of the Crowd-Out Effect, Income Effect, and Price Effect for Charitable Contributions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1197-1207, October.
    5. Andreoni, James, 1989. "Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1447-1458, December.
    6. repec:feb:framed:0087 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Diederich, Johannes & Goeschl, Timo, 2017. "To mitigate or not to mitigate: The price elasticity of pro-environmental behavior," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 209-222.
    2. ITO Koichiro & IDA Takanori & TANAKA Makoto, 2015. "The Persistence of Moral Suasion and Economic Incentives: Field experimental evidence from energy demand," Discussion papers 15014, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    3. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Valeria Costantini & Susanna Mancinelli & Massimilano Corradini, 2011. "Environmental and Innovation Performance in a Dynamic Impure Public Good Framework," Working Papers 201117, University of Ferrara, Department of Economics.
    4. Matthew Kotchen & Katherine R.H. Wagner, 2019. "Crowding In with Impure Altruism: Theory and Evidence from Volunteerism in National Parks," NBER Working Papers 26445, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Anja Brumme & Wolfgang Buchholz & Dirk Rübbelke, 2023. "The purity of impure public goods," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(3), pages 493-514, June.
    6. Arnab Mitra & Michael R. Moore, 2018. "Green Electricity Markets as Mechanisms of Public-Goods Provision: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(1), pages 45-71, September.
    7. Conte, Marc N. & Jacobsen, Grant D., 2016. "Explaining Demand for Green Electricity Using Data from All U.S. Utilities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 122-130.
    8. Mark Jacobsen & Jacob LaRiviere & Michael Price, 2014. "Public Goods Provision in the Presence of Heterogeneous Green Preferences," NBER Working Papers 20266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Julia Blasch & Mehdi Farsi, 2012. "Retail demand for voluntary carbon offsets - A choice experiment among Swiss consumers," IED Working paper 12-18, IED Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich.
    10. Anil Markandya & Dirk T.G. Rübbelke, 2012. "Impure public technologies and environmental policy," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 39(2), pages 128-143, May.
    11. Finus, Michael & Rubbelke, Dirk T G, 2008. "Coalition Formation and the Ancillary Benefits of Climate Policy," Stirling Economics Discussion Papers 2008-13, University of Stirling, Division of Economics.
    12. Jacobsen, Grant D. & Kotchen, Matthew J. & Vandenbergh, Michael P., 2012. "The behavioral response to voluntary provision of an environmental public good: Evidence from residential electricity demand," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 946-960.
    13. Garth Heutel, 2014. "Crowding Out and Crowding In of Private Donations and Government Grants," Public Finance Review, , vol. 42(2), pages 143-175, March.
    14. Matthew Harding & David Rapson, 2019. "Does Absolution Promote Sin? A Conservationist’s Dilemma," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(3), pages 923-955, July.
    15. Massimiliano Corradini & Valeria Costantini & Susanna Mancinelli & Massimiliano Mazzanti, 2015. "Interacting innovation investments and environmental performances: a dynamic impure public good model," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 17(1), pages 109-129, January.
    16. Delgado, Michael S. & Harriger, Jessica L. & Khanna, Neha, 2015. "The value of environmental status signaling," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1-11.
    17. Yokoo, Hide-Fumi & Kawai, Kosuke & Higuchi, Yuki, 2018. "Informal recycling and social preferences: Evidence from household survey data in Vietnam," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 109-124.
    18. Benediktson, Mathias Nylandsted, 2018. "Investigating the U-Shaped Charitable Giving Profile Using Register-Based Data," DaCHE discussion papers 2018:1, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
    19. Massimiliano Corradini & Valeria Costantini & Massimiliano Mazzanti & Susanna Mancinelli, 2014. "Linking innovation investment and environmental performance: an impure dynamic public good model," SEEDS Working Papers 0814, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Apr 2014.
    20. Douglas C. Bice & William H. Hoyt, 1997. "The Impact of Mandates and Tax Limits on Voluntary Contributions to Local Public Services: An Application to Fire Protection Services," Public Economics 9704002, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:10:y:2018:i:1:p:240-67. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.