Tell Me Something I Don’t Already Know: Informedness and the Impact of Information Programs
通过零售电力田野实验，发现高、低能耗用户对称地低估或高估自身相对能耗，但个性化反馈导致高估者和低用户反而增加用电，说明同伴比较信息项目不一定促进亲社会行为。
We document how imperfect information generates heterogeneous effects in information treatments with personalized high-frequency feedback and peer comparisons. In our field experiment in retail electricity, we find that high and low energy users symmetrically underestimate and overestimate their relative energy use pre-treatment. Responses to personalized feedback, however, are asymmetric. Households that overestimate their relative use and low users both respond by consuming more. These boomerang effects provide evidence that peer-comparison information programs, even those coupled with normative comparisons, are not guaranteed to lead to increases in prosocial behavior.