Does the Frequency of Reminders Matter for their Effectiveness? A Randomized Controlled Trial

We assess the impact of reminder frequency on the probability of paying overdue property taxes in a randomized controlled trial in China. One reminder a week (sent as a text message) considerably increases the probability of tax compliance and results in tangible fiscal gains compared to a one-off reminder. However, increasing the frequency of reminders to two text messages a week diminishes their effectiveness. The takeaway of our study is that frequent reminders are an important trigger for human behavior, nonetheless, beyond a certain frequency the effectiveness of additional reminders seems to decline.

Antinyan, Armenak, Zareh Asatryan, Zhixin Dai and Kazhi Wang (2021), Does the Frequency of Reminders Matter for their Effectiveness? A Randomized Controlled Trial, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 191 , 752-764