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on Nudge and Boosting |
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Issue of 2025–01–27
two papers chosen by Marco Novarese, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Pol Campos-Mercade (Department of Economics, Lund University); Armando N. Meier (Department of Economics, University of Basel); Stephan Meier (Columbia Business School, Columbia University); Devin Pope (Booth School of Business, University of Chicago); Florian H. Schneider (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Erik Wengstroem (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Whether monetary incentives to change behavior work and how they should be structured are fundamental economic questions. We overcome typical data limitations in a large-scale field experiment on vaccination (N = 5; 324) with a unique combination of administrative and survey data. We find that guaranteed incentives of $20 increase uptake by 13 percentage points in the short run and 9 in the long run. Guaranteed incentives are more e ective than lottery-based, prosocial, or individually-targeted incentives, though all boost vaccinations. There are no unintended consequences on future vaccination or heterogeneities based on vaccination attitudes and incentivized economic preferences. Further, administrative data on relatives shows substantial positive spillovers. Our findings demonstrate the great potential of incentives for improving public health and provide guidance on their design. |
| Keywords: | incentives, health behavior, social preferences, prosociality, risk preferences, vaccination |
| JEL: | C93 D01 D62 I12 I18 |
| Date: | 2025–01–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2415 |
| By: | Zhiyuan Liang (Beijing Jiaotong University); Vincent A.C. van den Berg (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Vincent Erik T. Verhoef (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Vincent Yacan Wang (Beijing Jiaotong University) |
| Abstract: | This study studies nudging information as a strategy that can complement or substitute externality pricing, by influencing commuter behavior through awareness of the health and environmental impacts of their choices. We develop a bi-modal model with road and metro commuters, with bottleneck congestion on the road and dynamic crowding congestion in the metro. The model further incorporates health costs and environmental externalities, particularly for road commuters. When commuters are homogeneous, our findings indicate that nudging information generates positive welfare effects except in scenarios with extremely high crowding effects in the metro system. Moreover, nudging information can consistently complement flat road tolls by integrating information and toll schemes to enhance the system’s social welfare impact. By adding heterogeneity in environmental preferences, car types, and income, the study further highlights that the effectiveness of such strategies depends on the varied behavioral responses from diverse individuals. Even when the crowding effect is relatively small with heterogeneity, nudging information may result in negative welfare effects by causing welfare-reducing swaps in road commuters’ departure patterns; in such cases, it fails to complement flat tolls effectively. |
| Keywords: | Congestion; Emissions; Nudging information; Bi-modal; Heterogeneity |
| JEL: | D8 L91 Q53 |
| Date: | 2024–12–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240081 |