PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Todd Pugatch
AU  - Nicholas Wilson
TI  - Nudging Demand for Academic Support Services: Experimental and Structural Evidence from Higher Education
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.0221-11474R2
DP  - 2022 Mar 09
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0221-11474R2
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2022/03/01/jhr.0221-11474R2.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2022/03/01/jhr.0221-11474R2.full
AB  - We conducted an experiment designed to increase demand for academic support services among more than 2,100 students at a large U.S. public university. The intervention shifted student attention and increased service use, but also revealed behavioral biases. Structural estimates using the experimental variation suggest that transaction costs well in excess of plausible opportunity costs explain relatively low service use. Moreover, one-third of students are never attentive to student services. Message characteristics also matter. Several common nudging techniques—such as text messages, lottery-based economic incentives, and repeated messages—either had no effect or in some cases reduced the effectiveness of messaging.