Can APPealing and more informative bills "nudge" individuals into conserving electricity?

We use a field experiment on energy billing in a German region to evaluate the effect of two behavioral nudges (consumption feedback and social comparison) on electricity consumption. Similar experiments have revealed significant treatment effects, yet the individual variance has proven substantial. On the grounds of these heterogeneous treatment effects and the possibility of cross-country behavioral differences, additional experiments are warranted. For our German participants with low pre-treatment consumption compared with many other countries, we find no treatment effects. Accordingly, we deduce from this that the effect of consumption feedback and social comparison is highly context dependent.