The California Drought: A Quasi-Experimental Analysis of Social Policy
Agras, W., Jacob, R., & Lebedeck, M. (1980, December). The California drought: A quasi-experimental analysis of social policy. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 13(4), 561-570.
The effect of fines for failure to conserve water during theCalifornia drought of 1976-1978 was evaluated in a retrospectively arranged multiple-baseline design across 3 San Francisco Bay area cities. On a community level, significant savings of water occurred regardless of whether fines were introduced or not; on an individual level, fines appeared to have an effect on private vs commercial or industrial consumers who had received at least 1 fine.
