Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/240449 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers in Economics and Statistics No. 2021-21
Publisher: 
University of Innsbruck, Research Platform Empirical and Experimental Economics (eeecon), Innsbruck
Abstract: 
We conducted two large-scale, highly powered randomized controlled trials intended to encourage consumer debt repayments. In Study 1, we implemented five treatments varying the design of envelopes sent to debtors. We did not find any treatment effects on response and repayment rates compared to the control condition. In Study 2, we varied the letters' contents in nine treatments, implementing factorial combinations of social norm and (non-)deterrence nudges, which were either framed emotively or non-emotively. We find that all nudges are ineffective compared to the control condition and even tend to induce backfiring effects compared to the agency's original letter. Since comparable nudges have been shown to be highly effective in other studies, our study supports the literature, emphasizing that the success of nudging interventions crucially depends on the domain of application.
Subjects: 
Nudging
randomized controlled trial
debt repayment
JEL: 
C93
D91
G51
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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