This paper presents results from two large-scale natural field experiments that tested the effect of social norm messages on tax compliance. Using administrative data from >200,000 individuals in the ...United Kingdom, we show that including social norm messages in standard reminder letters increases payment rates for overdue tax. This result offers a rare example of social norm messages affecting tax compliance behavior in a real world setting. We find no evidence that loss framing is more effective than gain framing. Descriptive norms appear to be more effective than injunctive norms. Messages referring to public services or financial information also significantly increased payment rates. The field experiments accelerated the collection of tax revenue at little cost.
•We present results from two large natural field experiments that use data from 200,000 individuals in the United Kingdom.•Including social norms and public services messages in official reminder letters increased payment rates for overdue tax.•This low-cost intervention offers a rare example of social norm messages increasing tax compliance in a real world setting.
This natural field experiment tests the effects of purely symbolic awards on volunteer retention in a public goods context. The experiment is conducted at Wikipedia, which faces declining editor ...retention rates, particularly among newcomers. Randomization assures that award receipt is orthogonal to previous performance. The analysis reveals that awards have a sizeable effect on newcomer retention, which persists over the four quarters following the initial intervention. This is noteworthy for indicating that awards for volunteers can be effective even if they have no impact on the volunteers’ future career opportunities. The awards are purely symbolic, and the status increment they produce is limited to the recipients’ pseudonymous online identities in a community they have just recently joined. The results can be explained by enhanced self-identification with the community, but they are also in line with recent findings on the role of status and reputation, recognition, and evaluation potential in online communities.
Data, as supplemental material, are available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2540
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This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics
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•Using a longitudinal field experiment, we find that an entrepreneur mentor increases the likelihood of joining a startup.•The entrepreneur mentor effect was significantly stronger for students whose ...parents were not entrepreneurs.•Performance data suggests that social influence is not encouraging “worse” quality entrepreneurship.•We contribute by examining the interaction between multiple sources of social influence.•We contribute by using a randomized field experiment to overcome the endogenous process of tie formation.
How do different sources of social influence impact the likelihood of entrepreneurship? We examine this question in the setting of an entrepreneurship class in which students were randomly assigned to receive mentorship from either an entrepreneur or a non-entrepreneur. Using a longitudinal field experiment with a pre-test/post-test design, we find that randomization to an entrepreneur mentor increases the likelihood of entrepreneurial careers, particularly for students whose parents were not entrepreneurs. Additional analysis shows the mentor influences the decision to join an early-stage venture, but not to become a founder. Performance data suggests that entrepreneurial influence is not encouraging “worse” entrepreneurship and may have helped students in joining or founding better-performing ventures. We contribute to the literature on social influence in entrepreneurship by examining the interaction between multiple sources of social influence and by using a randomized field experiment to overcome the endogenous process of tie formation.
European Commission aims to promote a more efficient and harmonized policy regulation framework for the market-pull of bio-based products. We conduct an artefactual field experiment in Italy, that ...demonstrates the existence of a “green premium”, which refers to increased consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for bio-based over conventional products, and a “certified green premium”, which refers to an additional increase in consumer WTP for certified bio-based products over and above other bio-based products. This experiment measures consumer preference through an incentive compatible procedure using 1080 observations. Moreover, we show that, across different product typologies (i.e. hand soap, food bags, colored pens), demand for conventional products is generally more elastic than demand for bio-based and certified bio-based products. Our evidence underlines that certification may play a key role in purchase decision making, especially for products in the food and nutrition and personal care categories. The diffusion of certified bio-based products may therefore prove effective for overcoming economic challenges related to the implementation of the circular bioeconomy. Social involvement is necessary to make certification an informative tool for consumers to encourage them to make green purchases. In fact, bio-based products combined with proper management at the end of their life cycle represent the concept of a circular bioeconomy. Certification therefore becomes the visible output to consumers of the actual sustainability of these products. Furthermore, the higher demand elasticity of conventional products suggests that even moderate price increases may have a significant impact on consumer preference for more sustainable products.
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•Consumers demonstrate a growing interest in green products.•A “green premium” (in terms of WTP) is always verified.•A “certified green premium” (in terms of WTP) is not always satisfied.•Demand for conventional products is more elastic than demand for bio-based products.•An instrument mix can favor the development of bio-based products.
Mid‐term (MTEs, 5–20 years) and long‐term (LTEs, 20+ years) field experiments are key sources of information to design future climate‐smart agriculture. Within the European Joint Program SOIL (EJP ...SOIL), we built the EJP SOIL‐MTE/LTE metadataset that contains metadata from 240 MTEs/LTEs across Europe. Metadata collected included precise descriptions of the treatments (combination of factors such as tillage, crop type/rotation, amendments/fertilizers, grazing and pest/weed management), soil and crop measurements and pedo‐climatic information. Using different figures and dashboards, an overview of those MTEs/LTEs is presented and specific research themes (tillage systems, residue management, amendment type and cover crops) are further analysed within their pedo‐climatic context. An interactive web portal developed in collaboration with the BonaRes project (https://lte.bonares.de), enables users to explore the metadataset and find relevant MTEs/LTEs for specific combinations of practices (e.g. all MTEs/LTEs that investigate cover crops on a Cambisol in no‐tillage system). Finally, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the metadataset was carried out to highlight the potential contribution of MTEs/LTEs to a harmonized European soil observation and monitoring approach. We propose that the metadataset could be elaborated with metadata from other existing MTEs/LTEs in Europe or even worldwide.
This study employs a randomized field experiment to causally identify what type of signal is likely to complement another signal in the context of financing technology ventures. The study examines ...the effect of product certification by expert intermediaries, prominent customers, and social proof (that is, others’ interest in investing in a venture) on interest in investing. These three signals are primarily signals of a venture’s product, market, and investment characteristics, respectively. The study finds that signals of product certification and prominent customers, and product certification and social proof are complements. In particular, investors who were able to view the combined product certification and prominent customer signals have a 72% higher likelihood of indicating an interest in making an equity investment than those who did not receive any of the three signals. Similarly, investors who were able to view the combined product certification and social proof signals have a 65% higher likelihood of indicating an interest in investing. These results suggest that in the context of technology ventures, a signal about product characteristics is the key to unlocking the value of signals of market or investment characteristics.
This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.
We study spatially differentiated competition between charities in a framed field experiment. We introduce spatial differentiation by varying the observability of charities’ location such that each ...donor faces a socially close ‘home’ and a socially distant ‘away’ charity. In our field setting, we observe spatially differentiated competition between charities offering the same good to be characterized by sorting, crowding-in, and an absence of spill-overs: Donors sort themselves by distance; fundraising (through matching) for one charity raises checkbook giving to that charity, irrespective of spatial distance; but checkbook giving to the unmatched charity is not affected.
In this paper, I focus on the role that artefactual and certain framed field experiments (what I term “lab‐like field experiments” or LFEs) play in informing policymaking. Using examples, primarily ...from rural contexts in developing countries, I identify four main purposes of LFEs: (1) to test theories or heuristic principles; (2) to identify and estimate parameters associated with characteristics; (3) to explore the structural nature of parameters derived from empirical methods including other types of experiments; and (4) to assess methodological difficulties associated with LFEs and how these can impact parameter estimates. I address the importance of generalizability for LFEs that are intended to inform policymaking and in the process, emphasize the complementary role between LFEs and other empirical methods, in particular other experiments. Finally, I discuss nine basic principles for conducting LFEs and suggest four directions for future research.
Tax evasion is a pervasive problem in many countries. In particular, some developing countries do not collect even half of what they would if taxpayers complied with the written letter of the law. ...The academic literature has not been oblivious to the need to explain why people pay (or do not pay) taxes. However, the empirical literature has not yet reached consensus. This paper reports the results of a large field experiment that tried to affect compliance by influencing property tax taxpayers' beliefs regarding the levels of enforcement, reciprocity, and peer-effects of the tax system in a municipality in Argentina. Results indicate that those taxpayers that received the deterrence message have a higher probability (almost 5 percentage points) to comply than the taxpayers in the control group. No average effects are found for the other two treatments. However, this average effects masks important results. After receiving the reciprocity and the peer-effects messages, the probability of compliance increased for some taxpayers but it decreased for others according to their underlying distribution of beliefs. The evidence in this paper advances the state of knowledge, may help to reconcile some of the results in the literature, and provides the basis for advancing policies and research on tax compliance in developing countries.
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