Reminders for voluntary payments might backfire-Evidence from a field study

Christoph Feldhaus; Tassilo Sobotta; Peter Werner

doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2018.07.026

Reminders for voluntary payments might backfire-Evidence from a field study

Christoph Feldhaus, Tassilo Sobotta, Peter Werner^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Microeconomics & Public Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

We investigate the effects of reminders for payments in a setting where customers pay on a voluntary basis. A neutral reminder significantly increases customers' payment probability. However, our study indicates the importance of the exact wording of the reminder. Reminders including additional information do not increase the payment probability further and seem even less effective than the neutral reminder in some cases. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	133-136
Number of pages	4
Journal	Economics Letters
Volume	171
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2018.07.026
Publication status	Published - 1 Oct 2018

Keywords

Field study
Voluntary payments
Reminder
Nudging
WHAT-YOU-WANT
FAIRNESS

Access to Document

10.1016/j.econlet.2018.07.026

Cite this

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title = "Reminders for voluntary payments might backfire-Evidence from a field study",

abstract = "We investigate the effects of reminders for payments in a setting where customers pay on a voluntary basis. A neutral reminder significantly increases customers' payment probability. However, our study indicates the importance of the exact wording of the reminder. Reminders including additional information do not increase the payment probability further and seem even less effective than the neutral reminder in some cases. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.",

keywords = "Field study, Voluntary payments, Reminder, Nudging, WHAT-YOU-WANT, FAIRNESS",

author = "Christoph Feldhaus and Tassilo Sobotta and Peter Werner",

note = "data source: experimental data from field experiment",

year = "2018",

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AU - Werner, Peter

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AB - We investigate the effects of reminders for payments in a setting where customers pay on a voluntary basis. A neutral reminder significantly increases customers' payment probability. However, our study indicates the importance of the exact wording of the reminder. Reminders including additional information do not increase the payment probability further and seem even less effective than the neutral reminder in some cases. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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KW - Voluntary payments

KW - Reminder

KW - Nudging

KW - WHAT-YOU-WANT

KW - FAIRNESS

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DO - 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.07.026

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