Can Information Reduce Nonpayment for Public Utilities? Experimental Evidence from South Africa

摘要: Nonpayment for public utilities is an important constraint to expanding service access in developing countries. As a potential policy response, this study implements and evaluates randomized water education campaign low income peri-urban area South Africa. We estimate substantial treatment effects: on the order of 30% increase payments over three-month period. Surprisingly, these effects are not driven by households’ knowledge. consider various possible explanations, argue that intervention likely had "nudging" households. Our findings have implications understanding energy conservation other information campaigns.