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The Impact of Defaults on Technology Adoption, and Its Underappreciation by Pollicymakers

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  • Bergman, Peter

    (Columbia University)

  • Rogers, Todd

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

We conduct an experiment to understand how enrollment defaults affect the take up and impact of an education technology. We show that a standard and simplified opt-in process induce low take up. Automatically enrolling parents increases adoption significantly and improves student achievement. Our surveys show automatic enrollment is uncommon because its impact is underestimated: District leaders overestimate take-up under the standard condition by 38 percentage points and underestimate take-up under automatic enrollment by 31 percentage points. After learning the actual take-up rates, there is a 140% increase in willingness to pay for the technology when shifting implementation to automatic enrollment.

Suggested Citation

  • Bergman, Peter & Rogers, Todd, 2017. "The Impact of Defaults on Technology Adoption, and Its Underappreciation by Pollicymakers," Working Paper Series rwp17-021, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp17-021
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    Cited by:

    1. Peter Bergman, 2020. "Nudging Technology Use: Descriptive and Experimental Evidence from School Information Systems," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(4), pages 623-647, Fall.
    2. Damgaard, Mette Trier & Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 2018. "Nudging in education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 313-342.
    3. Andersen, Simon Calmar & Guul, Thorbjørn Sejr & Humlum, Maria Knoth, 2019. "Instruction Time, Information, and Student Achievement: Evidence from a Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 12543, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Simon Calmar Andersen & Ulrik Hvidman, 2020. "Implementing Educational Interventions at Scale," Working Papers 2020-039, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.

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    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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