Avila S., Martinez A. (2025). Social comparisons to promote residential energy conservation. WP
Middle-income households in emerging economies are key drivers of global electricity demand, particularly in tropical regions where rising incomes and increasing temperatures amplify energy consumption. In many of these contexts, energy price policies are politically or financially unfeasible. This study examines the effectiveness of social comparison nudges in reducing residential electricity consumption in two rapidly growing cities in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula: Merida and Cancun. We implemented a field experiment in which households received feedback on their electricity usage relative to their neighbors, delivered through personalized flyers.
Using a Diff-n-Diff approach, we find that treated households reduced electric consumption by 7.9% on average –comparable to reductions in India and Lithuania. The effect was particularly pronounced in middle-to-upper households.
Our findings contribute to the literature on behavioral interventions for energy conservation in emerging economies, underscoring the potential of low-cost, non-price mechanisms to complement existing policy efforts in high-subsidy, high-grow settings.