A randomized field experiment comparing nudges and boosts for household electricity conservation in student housing
Yavor Paunov, Till Grüne-Yanoff, Caterina Marchionni, Claudia Schwirplies · 2026
Read A randomized field experiment comparing nudges and boosts for household electricity conservation in student housing by Yavor Paunov, Till Grüne-Yanoff, Caterina Marchionni, Claudia Schwirplies (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13542069.txt.
Description
Yavor Paunov and co-authors ran a field trial on saving electricity in student housing, in a 2026 paper. Two soft tools were compared. One group got weekly feedback on their use compared with peers, a classic nudge. The other got tips tied to their own devices, meant to build skill, a boost.
The trial ran 24 weeks and covered 140 student households. Both tools cut electricity use compared with the control group. They blunted a seasonal rise seen in untreated homes, saving about seven megawatt hours. Gains were strongest among students who used the most power at the start. The study also probed what drives such effects, a gap in past work on home energy saving.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Yavor Paunov, Till Grüne-Yanoff, Caterina Marchionni, Claudia Schwirplies |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 47 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |