Collection of Delinquent Fines: An Adaptive Randomized Trial to Assess the Effectiveness of Alternative Text Messages

Haynes, Laura; Green, Donald P.; Gallagher, Rory; John, Peter; Torgerson, David

doi:10.1002/pam.21717

Cited by 93 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…IDB (2011) surveys that literature as well as the use of new information technologies on individual behavior in several other policy areas, such as banking, and health. Haynes et al (2013) show the effect of text messages on the payments of delinquent fines. Kessler and Zhang (2014) summarize the differential effects of methods in the health literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Don't Blame the Messenger: A Field Experiment on Delivery Methods for Increasing Tax Compliance

Ortega¹,

Scartascini

2015

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Inter-American Development Bank. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose, as provided below. No derivative work is allowed. Terms of use: Documents inAny dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Following a peer review process, and with previous written consent by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a revised version of this work may also be reproduced in any academic journal, including those indexed by the American Economic Association's EconLit, provided that the IDB is credited and that the author(s) receive no income from the publication. Therefore, the restriction to receive income from such publication shall only extend to the publication's author(s). With regard to such restriction, in case of any inconsistency between the Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license and these statements, the latter shall prevail.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license. There is an ample literature on the determinants of tax compliance. Several field experiments have evaluated the effect and comparative relevance of sending deterrence and moral suasion messages to taxpayers. The effect of different delivery mechanisms, however, has not been evaluated so far. This study conducts a field experiment in Colombia that varies the way the National Tax Agency contacts taxpayers on payments due for income, value added, and wealth taxes. More than 20,000 taxpayers were randomly assigned to a control or one of three delivery mechanisms (letter, email, and personal visit by a tax inspector). Results indicate large and highly significant effects, as well as sizable differences across delivery methods. A personal visit by a tax inspector is more effective than a physical letter or an email, conditional on delivery, but email tends to reach its target more often. Improving the quality of taxpayer contact information can significa...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Don't Blame the Messenger: A Field Experiment on Delivery Methods for Increasing Tax Compliance

Ortega¹,

Scartascini

2015

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“…A large body of research conducted in the form of RCTs showed that the text message approach could be effective. These studies were done in both the medical world (Taylor et al 2012) (Youssef et al 2014) (Robotham et al 2016) and with defendants when it came to changing their behaviour in fine payments (Haynes et al 2013). This fine payment trial in particular demonstrates that defendants can be influenced by such an approach.…”

Section: Results In Context Of Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some find that the customisation of a message is a good way to get a recipient's attention (Dijkstra 2005). This can include using the person's name, which produced statistically significant results in the court service trial which increased fine payment, referred to previously (Haynes et al 2013). A standard reminder provided an increase of average fine payment of £4.16 (p = 0.034).…”

Section: Prior Studies Of Bnudging^by Sms Text Messagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The British justice system, as the landscape of this experiment, has seen this use of SMS before, with a successful test on outstanding court fine payments (Haynes et al 2013). With 93% of adults in the UK personally owning or using a mobile phone, and generating over 100 billion SMS annually, it is still very much an active method of communication and, as such, a viable delivery method for nudging in 2017 (Ofcom 2016).…”

Section: Prior Studies Of Bnudging^by Sms Text Messagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sorry, Wrong Number: Tracking Court Attendance Targeting Through Testing a “Nudge” Text

Chivers

Barnes

2018

Camb J Evid Based Polic

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Research Question Will sending defendants text messages reminding them that they are due at court, the day before, cause more defendants to attend the first scheduled Magistrate's Court hearing? Data The study universe included all 946 defendants in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight sent a postal requisition requiring them to attend court, who also had a mobile phone number, between January and June 2017. Two outcomes were then tracked: court attendance and fail-to-appear warrants. Method The experiment randomly assigned defendants at the point of postal requisition creation into the control group (n = 472), which received the standard postal approach, or the experimental treatment group (n = 474), which was sent a prescribed text message on the day before the court appearance. An intention to treat methodology was adopted, with a treatment integrity rate of 97% achieved. Post-experimental phone calls tracked the accuracy of 300 of the text numbers used across both experimental and control groups. Findings No statistically significant effect of text messages was found on either attendance at court (OR 1.06, p = 0.661) or fail-to-appear warrants issued (OR 1.106, p = 0.512). Sub-group moderator analyses were conducted by age, distance from home to court, prior history of failure to appear, and investigator contact with defendants. No sub-group showed statistically significant differences in either outcome. The postexperimental survey of phone number quality in a random sample of 300 numbers from both groups found 62% were either invalid (uncontactable) or confirmed as not being valid for the defendant. Reanalysis limited to the sub-sample of the 112 accurate numbers found that text messages had produced a promising but non-significant boost in court attendance rates. Camb J Evid Based Polic (2018)

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“…To answer this question, we draw on evidence from behavioural science 31 which suggests that email would be an effective mechanism by which EV owners could be prompted to switch electricity tariff. First, evidence suggests that EV owners will be more responsive to prompts delivered shortly after purchasing their EV, before they have developed strong habits over the timing of their charging 13,14,32 .…”

Section: Nudge: Going Beyond Opt-out Enrolmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailored emails prompt electric vehicle owners to engage with tariff switching information

et al. 2017

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Electric vehicles (EVs) are only as 'green' as the electricity used to charge them. EV charging will also challenge electricity networks. Here, we present results from a large randomised trial targeting 7,038 recipients of the UK Government's EV grant. We show that government could use administrative data from EV incentive schemes to exploit the 'window of opportunity' created when people purchase their first EV to promote energy tariff switching, including to time of use tariffs. Consistent with behavioural science, prompts emphasising reductions in homecharging costs are superior to prompts emphasising bill savings. However, governments should act soon; the 'window of opportunity' for maximising adoption is short; email open rates decline from over 70% immediately after purchase to 40% for recipients owning their EV for over three months. The results demonstrate the potential of prompts to change behaviours for which opt-out enrolment (where enrolment is automatic unless people explicitly opt-out) would be unethical or less effective.

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Collection of Delinquent Fines: An Adaptive Randomized Trial to Assess the Effectiveness of Alternative Text Messages

Cited by 93 publications

References 22 publications

Don't Blame the Messenger: A Field Experiment on Delivery Methods for Increasing Tax Compliance

Don't Blame the Messenger: A Field Experiment on Delivery Methods for Increasing Tax Compliance

Sorry, Wrong Number: Tracking Court Attendance Targeting Through Testing a “Nudge” Text

Tailored emails prompt electric vehicle owners to engage with tariff switching information

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