"Information Provision for Residential Energy Conservation"

Abstract

Information provision is often used to trigger socially desirable actions such as energy conservation. The present paper studies the short- and long-term effects of an intervention that randomized information letters among 120,000 households in Germany about savings potentials of energy efficient investments and behaviors. Treatment group households received four letters over the course of one year, containing information on the most effective measures to reduce electricity consumption. Moreover, we test whether the framing of information in environmental or monetary terms matters. We find that the average effect size is small, irrespective of the framing. By exploring the heterogeneity of treatment effects we show that certain subgroups are very responsive. While our findings suggest that information provision is not the panacea to curb electricity consumption, we contribute to the discussion on how to optimize information campaigns by targeting highly responsive consumers.