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Incentives, Commitments, and Habit Formation in Exercise: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Workers at a Fortune-500 Company
- Source :
- American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 7:51-84
- Publication Year :
- 2015
- Publisher :
- American Economic Association, 2015.
-
Abstract
- Financial incentives have shown strong positive short-run effects for problematic health behaviors that likely stem from time inconsistency. However, the effects often disappear once incentive programs end. This paper analyzes the results of a large-scale workplace field experiment to examine whether self-funded commitment contracts can improve the long-run effects of an incentive program. A four-week incentive program targeting use of the company gym generated only small lasting effects on behavior. Those that also offered a commitment contract at the end of the program, however, showed demand for commitment and significant long-run changes, detectable even several years after the incentive ended. (JEL D03, I10, J32)
Details
- ISSN :
- 19457790 and 19457782
- Volume :
- 7
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....bca7ec16745b55d889a2ea6dd8c5b5e8