Information and rewards: results of a field experiment on printing activity

ABSTRACT

Improved understanding of the nature and extent of individual concern for environmental issues is crucial for policy makers. The present article uses a within-subject field experiment to measure the impact on the consumption of paper of the provision of environmental information on the one hand and a reward on the other hand. It is found that adding the provision of a reward results in a greater decrease in the consumption of paper relative to the case where there is only the provision of information. However, it is important to note that while intrinsically motivated individuals reduce the consumption of paper in response to the provision of information, for this group there is no effect from the provision of a reward. In terms of policy and managerial implications, it is interesting to note that the different treatments have different impacts depending on the underlying personal norms of the agents. We are also able to test the responsiveness of the subjects to the treatments controlling for demographic characteristics and professional responsibilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Field experiment
• resource conservation
• information, social norms
• incentives

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the collaboration of the high education institution. The views expressed herein are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or its members.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Reference used in Carlosson and Johansson-Stenaman (see e.g. Schultz et al. [2007] and Allcott and Mullainathan [2010]; Ferraro et al. [2011] and Ferraro and Price [2011]).

2. See Stavins (2003) for a review.

3. See Lapinski and Rimal (2005) for a review.

4. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120911125334.htm

5. Durham Region (1997). Durham Region Outdoor Water Conservation Pilot Study. Durham Region, Ontario, Canada: Water-efficient Durham available at: http://www.toolsofchange.com/en/case-studies/detail/156/

6. See, for example, Frey (1997), Frey and Jegen (2001), Milinski, Semmann, and Krambeck (2002), and Bnabou and Tirole (2006).

7. In keeping with the environmental setting for the experiment, the reward provided was bags of seeds, distributed to all administrative staff. However, it is important to emphasise that no information was provided on the nature of the reward in the experiment itself.

8. As in Egebark and Ekström (2016) the email was sent and signed by a person with authority to ensure that the person is a source of credibility to have a persuasive communication (Della Vigna and Gentzkow 2010).

9. As the classes are essentially made up of small groups of relatively uniform size, the increase in the number of students leads to the creation of more classes, thus necessitating hiring of additional lecturers.

10. In some models estimated we also controlled for the type of printing ‘job’, but this did not prove to be statistically significant.

11. We estimate also the regression with the previous period as control. The results of the treatment are negative, but not significant. However, for the reasons noted above we feel that taking the same period from the previous year is preferable.

12. As was noted by one reviewer administrative staff consumption may be more closely associated with the number of staff members, rather than the size of the student body. However, the two are likely to highly correlated, and there are a number of administration-intensive responsibilities which are a direct function of the number of students – i.e. administration of scholarships, internships, overseas placements, etc.

13. See Cardenas, Stranlund ,and Willis (2000) and Vollan (2008) for studies related to conservation.

14. Bathtub capacity usually varies between 25 and 45 US gallons (www.wateralliance.org).