A large fraction of households have very little savings buffer and are therefore vulnerable to financial shocks. This paper examines whether a social norm nudge can induce such households to save more. We ran a large-scale field experiment at a retail bank in the Netherlands. We find that households who are exposed to the social norm nudge click more often on a link to a personal web page where they can start or adjust an automatic savings plan. However, analyzing detailed bank data, we find no treatment effect on actual savings, neither in the short run nor in the long run. Our null findings are quite precisely estimated. A complementary small-scale survey experiment suggests that people did notice the social norm nudge and also that it had an impact on savings intentions.

很大一部分家庭的储蓄缓冲很少，因此很容易受到金融冲击。本文考察了社会规范的推动是否会促使这些家庭增加储蓄。我们在荷兰的一家零售银行进行了大规模的现场试验。我们发现，受到社会规范推动的家庭会更频繁地点击指向个人网页的链接，在那里他们可以启动或调整自动储蓄计划。然而，分析详细的银行数据，我们发现无论是短期还是长期，对实际储​​蓄都没有处理效果。我们的零发现是非常精确地估计的。一项补充性的小规模调查实验表明，人们确实注意到了社会规范的推动，而且它对储蓄意图产生了影响。