In this paper, we examine the degree to which consumers are loyal to sustainably-labeled consumer packaged goods (CPGs). The two key determinants of product repurchase rates are consumers' underlying preferences and state-dependence. In this paper, we examine both components for CPGs that utilize on-package sustainability labels, in comparison to those without such labels. We examine data in four consumer packaged goods categories for 63,617 households across the US between 2015 to 2021. On the first dimension, we document psychographic and demographic characteristics that are predictive of sustainable preferences, such as the preference for natural foods. Along the second dimension, we show that consumers exhibit positive brand state dependence; this state dependence is higher for sustainably-labeled products in one of the four categories studied and lower for another. We also document state dependence for products with the same sustainability labels, an effect that has spillover effects across brands. Along this dimension, sustainability labels are not unique: we also demonstrate positive state dependence in other product attributes such as packaging, entree type, etc. The decomposition of loyalty into preferences and state dependence has implications for repeat purchases and incentives to invest in sustainability.

Individuals trade present for future consumption across a range of economic behaviors, and this tradeoff may differ across demographics. This study employs unique data on rooftop solar adoption and the expected returns from such adoption to estimate heterogeneous discount rates by wealth. We develop a dynamic model of optimal system sizing and adoption, and base identification on plausibly exogenous variation in the future savings from installing solar and electricity rates. We estimate implied discount rates of 19.8%, 10.3%, and 10.8% for low-, medium-, and high-wealth households in California. Counterfactual simulations demonstrate opportunities to reduce the regressivity of solar adoption and improve policy cost-effectiveness.

Consumers have become more interested in purchasing products produced using more sustainable practices, with much of the recent growth in consumer packaged goods within the United States from products with clearly labeled sustainability claims on their packaging. However, many categories have low levels of sustainable product market share, with substantial geographic variation. The authors assess the role of demographic variables in the availability of sustainable products, after controlling for their relative "profit potential" (determined by quantity, price, and price elasticity). To estimate profit potential, the authors estimate product and county-specific demand elasticities for seven consumer packaged goods subcategories in the grocery and mass merchandiser formats. A meta-analysis of the estimates shows that the relative profit potential of sustainable products increases with income and Democratic vote share. These variables predict greater sustainable product availability than would be expected from their higher profit potential. The fraction of the county that is white does not significantly impact profit potential but leads to higher sustainable product availability. Our findings provide evidence that managers likely use simple demographic heuristics to make product stocking decisions (supported by a separate survey of retailers) that do not necessarily reflect preferences for sustainable products and their profitability.

We develop a dynamic model in which firms decide when and where to enter a growing market. We do not pre-specify the order of entry, allowing instead for the roles of leader and follower to be determined endogenously. We characterize the subgame perfect equilibrium of the dynamic game and show that the times and locations of entry are governed by the threat of preemption. Because each rm has the opportunity to preempt its rival, both firms tend to enter too early. This in turn leads to rent dissipation. We show that rent dissipation may be far greater than when it is assumed that firms enter the market in a pre-specified order, the assumption made in the existing literature on spatial competition. In an empirical application, we study the entry of restaurants, gas stations, and hotels at highway intersections, finding results largely consistent with our model's predictions.

Purchase - $5 NBER Subscribers Download Add Paper to My Library Share: Permalink Using these links will ensure access to this page indefinitely Copy URL Valuing Technology Complementarities: Rooftop Solar and Energy Storage NBER Working Paper No. w32003 49 Pages Posted: 2 Jan 2024 See all articles by Bryan BollingerBryan BollingerNew York University (NYU) - Department of MarketingNaim DarghouthLawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryKenneth GillinghamYale UniversityAndres Gonzalez-Liraaffiliation not provided to SSRN Date Written: December 2023 Abstract Product complementarities can shape market patterns, influencing the demand for related products and their accessories. This study examines complementarities in the demand for rooftop solar and an accessory, battery energy storage. Using nationwide administrative data, we estimate a dynamic nested-logit model of solar and storage adoption. We quantify the demand complementarity between solar and storage, and find that if storage was not available, 20% of households who coadopt solar and storage would not adopt anything. We find that the demand for solar and storage bundles increases with power outages, with a larger effect in California.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org. Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation Bollinger, Bryan and Darghouth, Naim and Gillingham, Kenneth and Gonzalez-Lira, Andres, Valuing Technology Complementarities: Rooftop Solar and Energy Storage (December 2023). NBER Working Paper No. w32003, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4680738 Bryan Bollinger (Contact Author) New York University (NYU) - Department of Marketing ( email ) 40 W 4th StTisch 804New York, NY 10012United States Naim Darghouth Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ( email ) Berkeley, CAUnited States Kenneth Gillingham Yale University ( email ) 493 College StNew Haven, CT CT 06520United States Andres Gonzalez-Lira affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email ) No Address Available Purchase - $5 NBER Subscribers Download Do you have negative results from your research you'd like to share? Submit Negative Results Paper statistics Downloads 4 Abstract Views 93 1 Citations 36 References PlumX Metrics Related eJournals NBER Working Paper Series Follow NBER Working Paper Series Subscribe to this free journal for more curated articles on this topic FOLLOWERS 12,251 PAPERS 32,601 Feedback Feedback to SSRN Feedback (required) Email (required) Submit If you need immediate assistance, call 877-SSRNHelp (877 777 6435) in the United States, or +1 212 448 2500 outside of the United States, 8:30AM to 6:00PM U.S. Eastern, Monday - Friday.

This paper highlights the role of the duration of promotional campaigns that leverage word of mouth on long-term solar adoption rates after the campaigns conclude.

In recent years, consumers have become more interested in purchasing products produced using more sustainable practices, and much of the recent growth in consumer packaged goods (CPGs) within the United States has been from products with clearly labelled sustainability claims on their packaging. However, many categories have low levels of sustainable product market share, with substantial geographic variation. This paper assesses the role of the ``profit potential" (which is determined by equilibrium quantity, price, and price elasticity) and availability of sustainable products in explaining this heterogeneity as it relates to demographic variables. We estimate product and county-specific demand elasticities for six CPG subcategories in the grocery and mass merchandiser formats. Within grocery stores, we find that the profit potential for sustainable products relative to non-sustainable products increases for at least three of six subcategories with income, Democratic vote share, and the fraction of the county that is white, college educated, and female; these demographic variables also predict sustainable product availability. The demographic effects on profit potential are largely absent in mass merchandiser stores, despite their relationship with availability. When controlling for profit potential, we find that profitability cannot explain the reduced access to sustainable products for less stereotypical sustainable product consumers.

This paper evaluates the price and consumption effects of the first municipal soda tax imposed in the United States. Using high-resolution scanner data and data-driven approaches to select comparison units for counterfactual analysis, we estimate the tax has no effect on prices or consumption at drugstores, but increases supermarket prices of some soda products, constituting a minority of soda consumption. We estimate UPC-level pass through rates and find that there is significant heterogeneity across UPCs, much of which is explained by brand and size; average UPC-level pass through estimates in the supermarket range between 19% and 23%. We find limited evidence of reduced supermarket purchases of soda in the taxed jurisdiction. Half of these reduced purchases are substituted to just outside the taxed jurisdiction. Retailers’ limited price responses are attributed to the localness of the tax; other research studying the Philadelphia soda tax has demonstrated more substantial pass-through in this much larger jurisdiction.

Next article FreeClimate Change: Consumer Understanding, Response and InterventionsReducing Emissions across the Consumption Cycle and an Agenda for Future Research on Consumers and Climate Change: Introduction to the Special Issue on Climate ChangeKaren Page Winterich, Rebecca Walker Reczek, and Bryan BollingerKaren Page Winterich, Rebecca Walker Reczek, and Bryan BollingerPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreRecent reports indicate urgent action is needed to have a chance to mitigate, or perhaps adapt to, climate change (Plumer and Zhong 2022). Climate change refers to the long-term change in average weather patterns as human emissions of greenhouse gases have increased over the last century, with resulting declines in the health of our environment. These changes have significant impact on such varied outcomes as food production, population movement, biodiversity, and human mental and physical health, among others. The importance of mitigating climate change is recognized in Goal 13: Climate Action of the United Nation's 17 integrated Sustainable Development Goals to achieve a more sustainable future for all (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2023).Over two-thirds of global emissions arise from energy use, which includes direct use by consumers, as well as the energy used in the transportation and production of goods and services (Center for Climate and Energy Sources 2023). While consumers can reduce their own energy use via their transportation and home cooling and heating choices, company and government decisions can result in significantly larger reductions. As such, many are beginning to argue that system-level change is necessary, as the magnitude of emissions reductions needed cannot be achieved by focusing solely on individual-level interventions (Chater and Loewenstein 2022). Despite the importance of system-level change and the need to understand consumer response to proposed systemic changes, most of the articles in this special issue focus on how consumers can reduce their individual emissions through their consumption choices, with the goal of mitigating climate change. We therefore first review how the first eight articles in this special issue increase our understanding of how to reduce the emissions caused by everyday consumer activities in the developed world at all stages of the consumption cycle: acquisition, consumption, and disposition. We then broaden the scope of our discussion, consistent with the final research article in the special issue, which focuses on adoption of climate change mitigation strategies by nature-dependent prosumers in the developing world (Barrios et al. 2023).We then return to the importance of system-level change with a discussion of the most impactful questions that future research at the intersection of marketing and climate change should address. To do so, we draw on ideas raised in the two commentaries in the special issue, which address differences across consumer segments in willingness both to take individual action against climate change and to support systemic changes (French 2023), and likely consumer acceptance of public policy measures designed to reduce emissions (Frank 2023).Reducing Emissions Associated with Consumer AcquisitionNudging Lower Carbon Choices through Carbon Emissions LabelingWhen consumers seek to reduce their climate impact via their purchases, misleading packaging claims—termed greenwashing—make it challenging for consumers to determine what claims are legitimate. One approach to this problem is to move away from the use of generic terms such as "eco-friendly" to labels that specify product emissions, which may nudge consumers to make lower carbon choices. Food choice is a particularly impactful avenue for consumers to reduce the emissions associated with their purchases; cutting dairy and meat from one's diet may reduce emissions by 66% (United Nations Climate Change 2021).Two articles in this issue examine how carbon emission labeling on restaurant menus can influence consumer perceptions of sustainability and increase the likelihood of consumers choosing lower emission foods. In one article, Stillman et al. (2023) find that multi-icon traffic-light labels are most effective at reducing the carbon impact of consumers' food choices but also resulted in negative attitudes toward restaurants using them. However, single-icon labels denoting sustainable options also shifted choice to less carbon-intensive options, particularly when paired with numeric CO2 information, without resulting in negative attitudes toward the restaurant. Thus, consumers need labels to nudge them to choose foods with lower emissions, but not all labels are equally effective or without negative consequences for marketers. Rybak et al. (2023) examine how consumers' perceptions of the sustainability of restaurant menu items are affected by positive icons (a cool food logo to indicate favorable CO2 emissions level), negative icons (a stop sign to indicate unfavorable levels), and a neutral disclosure with numeric emissions information for all items. Findings indicate that both positive and negative dichotomous icons can be misleading for consumers' sustainability perceptions for moderately sustainable menu options but have little impact on judgments of extremely high or low emissions items. Further, Rybak et al. find either positive or negative icons positively impact perceptions of the restaurant's environmental concern, which indirectly impacts both attitudes and restaurant patronage intentions.A third article in this special issue also focuses on the impact of labeling on the acquisition phase, but for a different type of transaction, namely green investments. Gladstone, Reynolds, and Ramos (2023) draw upon theories of attention and information processing to examine the effect of translating carbon footprint information, also via product labels, into more accessible formats. They compare visual and numeric information to information that translates carbon quantities into equivalent activities and consumption of other products, such as cooking meals, commuting, and watching Netflix. In a somewhat counterintuitive finding, the authors show that the translated information is less effective in increasing choice of the lower impact product; potential explanations include the effect of label type on attention, the accessibility of information and the ease of integration into decision making, and consumers' understanding of the carbon footprint of these other analogous activities.Influencing Purchase of Sustainable BrandsFinally, consumers may also hope to mitigate the effects of climate change by purchasing only brands that actively promote themselves as sustainable, presumably in the hopes that these brands are actively making choices to reduce their emissions. When considering such brands, consumers may notice that some were founded with the purpose of mitigating climate impacts or are now launching new products with sustainable attributes, while others are adapting current offerings to be more sustainable. Sani-Elia, Perez, and Grinstein (2023) term this distinction as born versus reborn sustainability, respectively. They find that consumers perceive luxury brands that are born sustainable as more sincere than those that are reborn sustainable, which results in a more favorable response to born than to reborn luxury brands. However, for nonluxury brands, the extent to which a product is born or reborn does not impact brand sincerity or brand attitude.Reducing Emissions Associated with Consumer Consumption and UsageWhile a given consumer can reduce the emissions impact of their consumption choices by choosing one food item over another or one brand over another, how they use their purchases once acquired also impacts their individual emissions. Two articles in this special issue explore how well-known behavior-change tools, prompts (McKenzie-Mohr 2011; White et al. 2019), and social influence (Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius 2008) can be used to help consumers use their products in a way that minimizes negative impacts on the climate. First, Putnam-Farr and colleagues (2023) examine how prompts can increase positive habit formation, such as refilling and reuse of water bottles, that replaces behaviors that can have a more negative impact (like purchasing single-use plastic water bottles).1 This research finds that simple prompts are effective, particularly when placed early in the decision process (e.g., at the desk where one keeps their water bottle vs. at the water dispenser) when the contextual trigger is needed to enable the behavior. This research is particularly important because reusable water bottles, which are often touted as better for the environment than single-use plastic water bottles, are only better for the environment if they are actually reused.Just as the placement of prompts impacts the likelihood of habit formation, Bollinger, Gillingham, and Wight (2023) find that the source of the message impacts the effectiveness of social proof. When social media messaging with social proof about sustainable behavior is sent by a group with which the recipient is affiliated, it is more effective at impacting that behavior (energy conservation) compared to a message without social proof or from another sender. This research contributes to existing work demonstrating the effectiveness of using social proof, via normative messaging, to engage consumers in climate mitigation behaviors and to the effectiveness of social media as a mechanism to do so (Zhang, Chintagunta, and Kalwani 2021).Reducing Climate Impacts through Appropriate DispositionIn addition to the impact of which products they acquire and how they choose to use them, consumers can also impact their individual emissions via waste and disposition choices. Recycling is a relatively simple way for consumers to reduce emissions by allowing for the use of recycled rather than raw materials, but recycling rates are shockingly low (Hirsh 2022). Wu, Malter, and Johar (2023) demonstrate that anthropomorphizing products increases recycling rates through both an affective mechanism based on consumers experiencing empathy toward an anthropomorphized product, and a cognitive mechanism, in which consumers construe anthropomorphized products at a more abstract level, subsequently focusing on the desirable end of recycling rather than the effortful means of doing so.Though many consumers convince themselves they are "green" and support climate change mitigation via recycling, recycling has limitations (Stoeth 2020). One of these limitations is the consumer tendency to engage in "wishcycling" or aspirational recycling in which consumers recycle items that are not recyclable (Catlin et al. 2021). Doing so substantially reduces the efficiency of processing materials that are truly recyclable. One item that may result in confusion at the point of disposition is food-stained paper since paper can be recycled, but food-stained paper should be composted, and if composting is not available, then landfilled. Donnelly et al. (2023) investigate how the dirtiness of an item impacts consumer disposal decisions, finding that low dirtiness items are more likely to be incorrectly recycled due to the negative affect from not recycling, which increases recycling contamination, when such items should arguably be composted.Nature-Dependent ProsumersOf course, as with all climate change initiatives, adoption is critical. One reason many consumers, particularly those in developed countries, are not willing to adopt more sustainable behaviors is due to their perception that their lives are currently not directly impacted by climate change. That is, those in developed countries who have contributed the most to climate change are the least impacted, whereas those bearing the brunt of impacts from climate change have contributed little to environmental harm (Plumer, Friedman, and Sengupta 2022). Nonetheless, there are millions of consumers around the world directly experiencing the effects of climate change via flooding, drought, or other environmental impacts. In the final article in this issue, Barrios et al. (2023) examine the factors that impact whether nature-dependent consumers in Columbia adopt more sustainable agricultural practices. They find that knowledge emerges in a dialectic relationship such that knowledge from the intervention network interacts with reflected knowledge about climate change and solutions from the response network in ways that can both encourage and discourage adoption of climate change solutions. Notably, Barrios et al. (2023) conclude that interventions promoted solely with economic benefits can be undermined by fluctuations in the wider network, whereas those that emphasize ecological and social benefits, particularly concrete benefits, could offset deterrents to adoption of such practices.Conclusion and an Agenda for Future ResearchAlthough climate change concerns are growing, with some consumers even facing climate anxiety (Crandon et al. 2022), there are still many consumers who are not concerned about climate change and thus not motivated to engage in climate change mitigation behaviors. Indeed, research by the Natural Marketing Institute has identified consumer segments based on their level of green consciousness (as highlighted in the commentary in this special issue by French [2023]). This segmentation recognizes LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) consumers as most concerned about the environment. Generally, consumers with greater environmental concern are more likely to engage in behaviors to mitigate climate change, but Donnelly et al. (2023) show that there are downsides to greater environmental concern, as such consumers are more likely to engage in recycling contamination to avoid the negative affect they experience from not recycling. Notably, LOHAS consumers not only demonstrate their environmental concern through their own behaviors, but they are also much more concerned with what companies are doing to mitigate their impact on the environment (French 2023). This difference is important because it is critical to recognize that consumers alone cannot drive the magnitude of change or the pace at which change is needed to mitigate climate change.For decades, companies have sought to place responsibility for environmental harm on consumers with campaigns to encourage consumers to recycle and purchase "green" products to "do their part." This practice has resulted in consumer "responsibilization" (Giesler and Verseiu 2014). However, individual consumer behaviors, even collectively, do not have the same magnitude of impact that company actions do. Though the articles in this issue do not address this distinction, focusing instead on a range of behaviors by individual consumers from food choice to product disposition to water bottle usage, there is a growing consensus that more systemic changes to the marketplace are necessary if we are to mitigate climate change (Chater and Loewenstein 2022).It is telling that, in a special issue on climate change, the majority of the articles we received do not address systemic change. This is perhaps because academic marketing research on climate change specifically (as opposed to sustainable behavior more broadly) is still relatively rare. In fact, recent research reveals that only a fraction of the research dollars spent on climate change related research are allocated to the social sciences (Overland and Sovacool 2020). This is somewhat alarming when behavioral research is needed to understand what factors will determine consumer acceptance of and adaptation to systemic change as well as drive demand for systemic change. Marketing and consumer researchers need to do their part to provide relevant social science research related to climate change by focusing on issues like how to increase consumer acceptance of more systemic changes in the marketplace and regulatory environment designed to reduce emissions, a topic discussed in the other commentary in this special issue. Frank (2023) highlights how social contagion can lead to greater acceptance of climate-change-relevant policy changes. Rather than focusing exclusively on how to encourage consumers to "be more sustainable" in a broad and general way or to engage in individual-level "eco-friendly" actions that are not necessarily particularly impactful for climate change (e.g., purchasing less environmentally harmful products or using reusable grocery bags), future research should address issues like how consumers who are concerned about climate change can effectively support firms, policy makers, and NGOs driving systemic change, the role of technology, automation, and artificial intelligence by assisting in the better utilization of finite resources, and adaptation to climate change in the marketplace as the climate crisis continues.NotesKaren Page Winterich is the Gerald I. Susman Professor in Sustainability, and professor of marketing, Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. Rebecca Walker Reczek is the Berry Chair of New Technologies in Marketing, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA. Bryan Bollinger is Professor of Marketing & George A. Kellner Faculty Fellow, Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, NY, USA.1. 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Kalwani (2021), "Social Media, Influencers, and Adoption of an Eco-Friendly Product: Field Experiment Evidence from Rural China," Journal of Marketing, 85 (3), 10–27.First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle ScholarThank You to Our ReviewersThe editors wish to thank the following reviewers who gave so generously of their time to assist in the publication of this issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.Lisa Bolton, Penn State UniversityAaron Brough, Utah State UniversityAdrian Camilleri, University of Technology SydneyJesse Catlin, California State University, SacramentoMatthew Godfrey, University of Massachusetts AmherstAmir Grinstein, Northeastern UniversityHal Hershfield, University of California, Los AngelesJoAndrea Hoegg, University of British ColumbiaJulie Irwin, University of TexasUma Karmarkar, University of California, San DiegoJeremy Kees, Villanova UniversityBlair Kidwell, University of North TexasAnn Kronrod, University of Massachusetts LowellSaerom Lee, University of GuelphBrent McFerran, Simon Fraser UniversityGergana Nenkov, Boston CollegeGeorge Newman, University of TorontoNailya Ordabayeva, Boston CollegeAnita Rao, Georgetown UniversityCaroline Roux, Concordia UniversityDan Schley, Erasmus Universiteit RotterdamStephan Seiler, Imperial CollegeSankar Sen, Baruch CollegeClaudia Townsend, University of MiamiYaacov Trope, New York UniversityRemi Trudel, Boston UniversityEla Veresiu, York UniversityKatherine White, University of British ColumbiaWendy Wood, University of Southern CaliforniaFelix Xu, University of KentuckyDaniel Zane, Lehigh University Next article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Association for Consumer Research Ahead of Print Sponsored by the Association for Consumer Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/724997 Views: 131Total views on this site HistoryPublished online May 26, 2023 © 2023 Association for Consumer Research. 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Social media can be an effective tool for encouraging prosocial behavior, such as energy conservation, making it a key avenue to address the challenges associated with climate change. We examine how social media can be best leveraged to encourage energy-saving behavior. We theorize that two characteristics of social media messages are of particular importance in the context of nudging prosocial behavior: the recipient’s affiliation with the message sender and whether the content of the message contains a social proof appeal. We use a multimethod approach to test the importance of these characteristics, including a large-scale energy efficiency campaign and a controlled experiment. We find that social media messages sent by a group with which the recipient is affiliated are substantially more effective, particularly when providing evidence of social proof. We discuss the practical impact on the environment.

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This paper assesses the role of visibility as a channel for social influence in solar panel adoption.

This article examines the differential impact of variances in the quality and taste comments found in online customer reviews on firm sales. Using an analytic model, the authors show that although increased variance in consumer reviews about taste mismatch normally decreases subsequent demand, it can increase demand when mean ratings are low and/or quality variance is high. In contrast, increased variance in quality always decreases subsequent demand, although this effect is moderated by the amount of variance in tastes. Since these theoretical demand effects are predicated on the assumption that consumers can differentiate between the two sources of variation in ratings, the authors conduct a survey to test this assumption, demonstrating that participants are indeed able to reliably distinguish quality from taste evaluations in two subsets of 5,000 reviews taken from larger data sets of reviews for 4,305 restaurants and 3,460 hotels. The authors use these responses to construct sets of reviews that they use in a controlled laboratory experiment on restaurant choice, finding strong support for the theoretical predictions. These responses are also used to train classifiers using a bag-of-words model to predict the degree to which each review in the larger data sets relates to quality and/or taste, allowing the authors to estimate the two types of review variances. Finally, the authors estimate the effects of these variances in overall ratings on establishment sales, again finding support for the theoretical results.

How do consumers value conformity, and what are the implications for conservation policy? In this article, we study conformity in homeowners' landscaping choices-which have important consequences for water consumption-for housing parcels throughout a large arid American city. We use machine learning techniques to generate precise land cover classifications on each parcel from remote sensing imagery, allowing us to obtain hedonic estimates of the marginal value of conformity. Our work is unique as the first to study this behavioral phenomenon using rich observational data from a real-world market. We then overlay these estimates on a theoretical model to characterize how conformity motives interact with conservation. We find that Pigouvian pricing is roughly half as effective in the presence of conformity, as our estimated conformity effects will countervail price effects. This work shows how behavioral phenomena, such as conformity, may have empirically relevant impacts on the effectiveness of standard conservation interventions.

Front-of-package and on-shelf nutrition labeling systems in supermarkets have been shown to lead to only modest increases in the purchase of more nutritious foods. Educational campaigns may increase the use of these types of product labels if (1) there is a lack of consumer awareness and/or understanding of the labels, and (2) the information provided leads consumers to prefer different products. The authors study a large-scale national campaign for the Guiding Stars nutrition labels conducted by a grocery retailer in Canada that implemented the labels. Using detailed household transaction data, the authors find only a small increase in the purchase of higher star–rated foods during the campaign, driven by produce purchases, and 60% of the effect disappears after the campaign’s conclusion. Exit surveys were conducted outside of stores before and after the campaign to explain the limited response. Awareness and understanding of the nutrition labeling system increased marginally after the campaign, but there was no increase in self-reported use.

This project is a data-driven analysis of approaches to facilitate solar adoption in LMI communities and areas with high potential benefits to the electric grid. The cornerstone of the project was two waves of randomized field experiments. The first wave involved novel approaches to reaching LMI communities based on insights from literature. The second wave involved areas of high potential of solar to the electricity grid, as determined in collaboration with the local utilities in Connecticut. Both waves were followed by surveys to develop insight into the effectiveness of different approaches. A third key element of the project is the development of new agent-based models of solar energy diffusion that explicitly incorporate the real spatial and temporal constraints that influence solar diffusion, based on real-world data on solar adoption. The project also involved outreach and dissemination of key findings to relevant stakeholders, including a guidebook on strategies to accelerate solar deployment to low and moderate income communities, multiple academic publications, and numerous presentations of the research findings.

Social interactions are widely understood to influence consumer decisions in many choice settings. This paper identifies causal peer effects in residential water conservation during the summer using variation from movers. We classify high-resolution remote sensing images to provide evidence that conversions of green landscaping to dry landscaping are a primary determinant of the reductions in water consumption. We also find suggestive evidence that without a price signal, peer effects are muted, indicating a possible complementarity between information and prices. These results inform water use policy in many areas of the world threatened by recurring drought conditions. (JEL D12, L95, Q25, Q54, Z13)