No Tips Please: Informational Messaging for Water Conservation

Abstract

Abstract A common practice of water utilities is including informational messages in correspondences with customers. We implement a randomized field experiment to analyze how including tips and technical advice in informational messages impacts residential water use. Using a unique experimental design, we disentangle the influence of technical advice and tips from peer comparisons. Three informational components are used to create four treatment combinations: conservation messages only, conservation message plus peer comparison, conservation message plus tips, and conservation messages plus tips and peer comparison. We estimate conventional panel regression models for 2,163 households in Norman, Oklahoma using detailed customer-level data on monthly consumption, meter route location, and rainfall measures. The biggest estimated conservation responses corresponded to treatments with a conservation message and peer comparison without the inclusion of tips. Our results suggest that the common practice of including tips in informational messages may be counterproductive for inducing conservation.