A behavioral rebound effect

Green firm, brown environment

“…In an alternative vein, it suggests that the imposition of a technology standard stricter than a critical level along with an emission tax may be detrimental for the environment. Our results are in line with the findings of a recent study (Dorner, 2019) that suggest possible channels of behavioral rebound effect, for example, due to (i) reduced marginal environmental damage and (ii) moral licensing given endogenous technological change (see, e.g., (Dutschke et al, 2018)…”

“…Literature on the effect of green technology adoption on the environment suggest that the reduction in environmental damage due to adoption of such technologies may be (partially) offset by the increase in damages due to higher resource utilization. In other words, while using greener technology, users may rationally respond to an improvement in environmental efficiency in the use of resources such as energy and water by consuming more—the phenomenon commonly known as the rebound effect (see, e.g., Aydin et al, 2017; Binswanger, 2001; Chang et al, 2018; De Borger et al, 2016; Dorner, 2019; Gillingham et al, 2016; Khazzoom, 1980). Efficiency improvements may affect the demand for resources and energy, and often an increase in efficiency by 1% will cause a reduction in resource use that is far below 1% or, sometimes, it can even cause an increase in resource use.…”

Norm-Based Feedback on Household Waste: Large-Scale Field Experiments in Two Swedish Municipalities

“…This effect, which is about the same magnitude as our main ATEs, stands in contrast to the null results of previous studies such as Allcott (2011). Thus, receiving Figure 5: Heterogeneous treatment effects by baseline waste generation: point estimates by decile, with 95% confidence intervals the label 'Excellent' appears to increase subsequent waste generation, a pattern seemingly consistent with the psychological theory of 'moral licensing', where feeling good about oneself perversely causes future bad behavior (Sachdeva et al, 2009;Mazar and Zhong, 2010;Gneezy et al, 2014;Dorner, 2019). However, no such effect arises in Partille, so overall, we would suggest caution in drawing too strong conclusions from the Varberg findings.…”

Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research

“…Unlike the prediction market in Camerer et al (2016), the RPP prediction market outperformed a survey of researcher beliefs. 42 Despite the inability to replicate so many prominent empirical papers in economics (discussed above), there have been few systematic efforts to replicate findings, with one exception (in addition to Camerer et al 2016) being the new 3ie replication program for development economics studies, which has replicated a handful papers to date, including one by an author of this article. 43 Few economics journal editors specifically seek to publish replications, and even fewer are willing to publish "successful" replications, i.e., papers that demonstrate that earlier findings are indeed robust, with the Journal of Applied Econometrics being a notable exception (Pesaran 2003).…”

“…43 Few economics journal editors specifically seek to publish replications, and even fewer are willing to publish "successful" replications, i.e., papers that demonstrate that earlier findings are indeed robust, with the Journal of Applied Econometrics being a notable exception (Pesaran 2003). Despite the value to the research enterprise of more systematic evidence on which empirical results are actually reliable, and the fact that many scholars have advocated for changes in this practice over the years with a near constant stream of editorials (see among others Kane 1984;Mittelstaedt and Zorn 1984;Fuess 1996;Hunter 2001;Camfield and Palmer-Jones 2013;Duvendack and Palmer-Jones 2013;Duvendack, Palmer-Jones, and Reed 2015;and Zimmermann 2015) , as yet there has been little progress within the economics profession toward actually publishing replication studies on a more general basis 42 For related research on expert predictions, see DellaVigna and Pope (2016). Other psychology researchers have tried another way to crowdsource replication: instead of bringing different research groups together to all independently run the same classic experiment, other researchers have independently analyzed the same observational data set and attempted to answer the same question, in this case, the question of whether darker skintoned soccer players receive more red cards as a result of their race, conditional on other factors (Silberzahn and Uhlmann 2015).…”