NBER Publications by Todd Rogers

Interventions to affect repeated behaviors, such as smoking, exercise, or workplace effort, can often have large short-run impacts but uncertain or disappointing long-run effects. We study one part of a large program designed to induce energy conservation, in which home energy reports containing personalized feedback, social comparisons, and energy conservation information are being repeatedly mailed to more than five million households across the United States. We show that treatment group households reduce electricity use within days of receiving each of their initial few reports, but these immediate responses decay rapidly in the months between reports. As more reports are delivered, the average treatment effect grows but the high-frequency pattern of action and backsliding attenuates. ...