Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeeman/v86y2017icp68-80.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using unobtrusive sensors to measure and minimize Hawthorne effects: Evidence from cookstoves

Author

Listed:
  • Simons, Andrew M.
  • Beltramo, Theresa
  • Blalock, Garrick
  • Levine, David I.
Abstract
People act differently when they know they are being observed. This phenomenon, the Hawthorne effect, can bias estimates of program impacts. Unobtrusive sensors substituting for human observation can alleviate this bias. To demonstrate this potential, we used temperature loggers to measure fuel-efficient cookstoves as a replacement for three-stone fires. We find a large Hawthorne effect: when in-person measurement begins, participants increase fuel-efficient stove use approximately three hours/day (53%) and reduce three-stone fire use by approximately two hours/day (29%). When in-person measurement ends, participants reverse those changes. We then examine how this Hawthorne effect biases estimates of fuel use and pollution concentrations. Our results reinforce concerns about Hawthorne effects, especially in policy-relevant impact evaluations. By measuring the Hawthorne effect we permit researchers to correct for the bias it introduces.

Suggested Citation

  • Simons, Andrew M. & Beltramo, Theresa & Blalock, Garrick & Levine, David I., 2017. "Using unobtrusive sensors to measure and minimize Hawthorne effects: Evidence from cookstoves," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 68-80.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:86:y:2017:i:c:p:68-80
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2017.05.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069617303170
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jeem.2017.05.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beltramo, Theresa & Blalock, Garrick & Levine, David I. & Simons, Andrew M., 2015. "The effect of marketing messages and payment over time on willingness to pay for fuel-efficient cookstoves," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 333-345.
    2. Ruiz-Mercado, Ilse & Masera, Omar & Zamora, Hilda & Smith, Kirk R., 2011. "Adoption and sustained use of improved cookstoves," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 7557-7566.
    3. Leonard, Kenneth L. & Masatu, Melkiory C., 2010. "Using the Hawthorne effect to examine the gap between a doctor's best possible practice and actual performance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 226-234, November.
    4. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2011. "Was There Really a Hawthorne Effect at the Hawthorne Plant? An Analysis of the Original Illumination Experiments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 224-238, January.
    5. Armin Falk & James J. Heckman, 2009. "Lab Experiments are a Major Source of Knowledge in the Social Sciences," Working Papers 200935, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    6. Kremer, Michael R. & Karlan, D. S. & Hornbeck, Richard A. & Gine, X. & Duflo, E. & Pariente, W. & Null, C. & Miguel, E. & Devoto, F. & Crepon, B. & Banerjee, A. & Zwane, A. P. & Zinman, J. & Van Dusen, 2011. "Being Surveyed Can Change Later Behavior and Related Parameter Estimates," Scholarly Articles 11339433, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2010. "The Impact of Diagnostic Feedback to Teachers on Student Learning: Experimental Evidence from India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(546), pages 187-203, August.
    8. Harrell, Stephen & Beltramo, Theresa & Blalock, Garrick & Kyayesimira, Juliet & Levine, David I. & Simons, Andrew M., 2016. "What is a “meal”? Comparative methods of auditing carbon offset compliance for fuel-efficient cookstoves," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 8-16.
    9. Buchanan, Kathryn & Russo, Riccardo & Anderson, Ben, 2014. "Feeding back about eco-feedback: How do consumers use and respond to energy monitors?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 138-146.
    10. Pascaline Dupas, 2009. "What Matters (and What Does Not) in Households' Decision to Invest in Malaria Prevention?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 224-230, May.
    11. Greenstone, Michael & Gayer, Ted, 2009. "Quasi-experimental and experimental approaches to environmental economics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 21-44, January.
    12. Leonard, Kenneth L., 2008. "Is patient satisfaction sensitive to changes in the quality of care? An exploitation of the Hawthorne effect," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 444-459, March.
    13. Grant Miller & A. Mushfiq Mobarak, 2013. "Gender Differences in Preferences, Intra-Household Externalities, and Low Demand for Improved Cookstoves," NBER Working Papers 18964, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Jishnu Das & Jeffrey Hammer & Kenneth Leonard, 2008. "The Quality of Medical Advice in Low-Income Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 93-114, Spring.
    15. Antonio Bento & Daniel Kaffine & Kevin Roth & Matthew Zaragoza-Watkins, 2014. "The Effects of Regulation in the Presence of Multiple Unpriced Externalities: Evidence from the Transportation Sector," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 1-29, August.
    16. Pascaline Dupas, 2014. "Short‐Run Subsidies and Long‐Run Adoption of New Health Products: Evidence From a Field Experiment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(1), pages 197-228, January.
    17. Akaike, Hirotugu, 1981. "Likelihood of a model and information criteria," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 3-14, May.
    18. Sendhil Mullainathan & Marianne Bertrand, 2001. "Do People Mean What They Say? Implications for Subjective Survey Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 67-72, May.
    19. Joshua Angrist & Eric Bettinger & Michael Kremer, 2006. "Long-Term Educational Consequences of Secondary School Vouchers: Evidence from Administrative Records in Colombia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 847-862, June.
    20. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    21. Berrueta, Víctor M. & Edwards, Rufus D. & Masera, Omar R., 2008. "Energy performance of wood-burning cookstoves in Michoacan, Mexico," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 859-870.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rudolf, Katrin & Romero, Miriam & Asnawi, Rosyani & Irawan, Bambang & Wollni, Meike, 2020. "Effects of information and seedling provision on tree planting and survival in smallholder oil palm plantations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    2. Borg, Simon, 2021. "Video–based observation in impact evaluation," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    3. Kar, Abhishek & Brauer, Michael & Bailis, Rob & Zerriffi, Hisham, 2020. "The risk of survey bias in self-reports vs. actual consumption of clean cooking fuels," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    4. Grabher, Harald F. & Erb, Karlheinz & Singh, Simron & Haberl, Helmut, 2024. "Household energy systems based on biomass: Tracing material flows from source to service in rural Ethiopia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    5. Brick, Kerri & De Martino, Samantha & Visser, Martine, 2023. "Behavioural nudges for water conservation in unequal settings: Experimental evidence from Cape Town," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    6. Simons, Andrew M., 2020. "Making Business Statistics Come Alive: Incorporating Field Trial Data from a Cookstove Study into the Classroom," Applied Economics Teaching Resources (AETR), Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 2(3), July.
    7. Jack, B. Kelsey, 2017. "Environmental economics in developing countries: An introduction to the special issue," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-7.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bonan, Jacopo & Battiston, Pietro & Bleck, Jaimie & LeMay-Boucher, Philippe & Pareglio, Stefano & Sarr, Bassirou & Tavoni, Massimo, 2021. "Social interaction and technology adoption: Experimental evidence from improved cookstoves in Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    2. Eszter Czibor & David Jimenez‐Gomez & John A. List, 2019. "The Dozen Things Experimental Economists Should Do (More of)," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 371-432, October.
    3. Jacopo Bonan & Stefano Pareglio & Massimo Tavoni, 2014. "Access to Modern Energy: a Review of Impact Evaluations," Working Papers 2014.96, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    4. Fuhai Hong & Tanjim Hossain & John A. List & Migiwa Tanaka, 2018. "Testing The Theory Of Multitasking: Evidence From A Natural Field Experiment In Chinese Factories," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(2), pages 511-536, May.
    5. Sebastian Kube & Michel André Maréchal & Clemens Puppe, 2013. "Do Wage Cuts Damage Work Morale? Evidence From A Natural Field Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 853-870, August.
    6. Gunther Bensch & Jörg Peters, 2020. "One‐Off Subsidies and Long‐Run Adoption—Experimental Evidence on Improved Cooking Stoves in Senegal," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(1), pages 72-90, January.
    7. Leonard, Kenneth L. & Masatu, Melkiory C., 2010. "Using the Hawthorne effect to examine the gap between a doctor's best possible practice and actual performance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 226-234, November.
    8. Hansen, Bradley A. & Hansen, Mary Eschelbach, 2016. "The historian's craft and economics," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 349-370, June.
    9. Ouazad, Amine & Page, Lionel, 2013. "Students' perceptions of teacher biases: Experimental economics in schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 116-130.
    10. Cilliers, Jacobus & Dube, Oeindrila & Siddiqi, Bilal, 2015. "The white-man effect: How foreigner presence affects behavior in experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 397-414.
    11. Brooks, N. & Bhojvaid, V. & Jeuland, M.A. & Lewis, J.J. & Patange, O. & Pattanayak, S.K., 2016. "How much do alternative cookstoves reduce biomass fuel use? Evidence from North India," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 153-171.
    12. J. Michelle Brock & Andreas Lange & Kenneth L. Leonard, 2012. "Generosity norms and intrinsic motivation in health care provision: evidence from the laboratory and the field," Working Papers 147, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Office of the Chief Economist.
    13. Alem, Yonas & Eggert, Håkan & Kocher, Martin G. & Ruhinduka, Remidius D., 2018. "Why (field) experiments on unethical behavior are important: Comparing stated and revealed behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 71-85.
    14. Karanja, Alice & Gasparatos, Alexandros, 2019. "Adoption and impacts of clean bioenergy cookstoves in Kenya," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 285-306.
    15. Harrell, Stephen & Beltramo, Theresa & Blalock, Garrick & Kyayesimira, Juliet & Levine, David I. & Simons, Andrew M., 2016. "What is a “meal”? Comparative methods of auditing carbon offset compliance for fuel-efficient cookstoves," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 8-16.
    16. Rebecca Dizon-Ross & Pascaline Dupas & Jonathan Robinson, 2015. "Governance and the Effectiveness of Public Health Subsidies," NBER Working Papers 21324, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Kerstin Fiederling & Jörg Schiller & Frauke von Bieberstein, 2018. "Can we Trust Consumers’ Survey Answers when Dealing with Insurance Fraud?," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 70(2), pages 111-147, May.
    18. Jan, Inayatullah & Lohano, Heman Das, 2021. "Uptake of energy efficient cookstoves in Pakistan," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    19. Wettstein, Dominik J. & Boes, Stefan, 2022. "How value-based policy interventions influence price negotiations for new medicines: An experimental approach and initial evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 112-121.
    20. Potters, Jan & Stoop, Jan, 2016. "Do cheaters in the lab also cheat in the field?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 26-33.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Q56; O13; I32; O22; D01; Observation bias; Hawthorne effect; Sensors; Improved cookstoves; Monitoring and evaluation; Impact evaluation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • O22 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Project Analysis
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:86:y:2017:i:c:p:68-80. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622870 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.