Electronic Home Energy Reports among Eco-customers : Is there a Signal?

Home energy reports (HERs) have been shown to reduce electricity consumption via peer-comparisons, but evidence has also emerged that treatment heterogeneity and small effect sizes may undermine their cost-effectiveness in some contexts. Using data elicited from a randomized control trial in Austria, we employ alternative model specifications that capture heterogeneity in the effect of HERs, including a novel measure of treatment intensity defined as the deviation between the household’s pre-treatment electricity consumption and the mean electricity consumption of households in its zip code. Based on a large sample of about 9,000 eco-electricity households, our results indicate that HERs induce no significant change in electricity consumption, neither on average nor upon allowing for heterogeneity