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Spillovers from targeting of incentives : Exploring responses to being excluded

Alpízar, Francisco ; Nordén, Anna LU ; Pfaff, Alexander and Robalino, Juan (2017) In Journal of Economic Psychology 59. p.87-98
Abstract

A growing set of policies involve transfers conditioned upon socially desired actions, such as attending school or conserving forest. However, given a desire to maximize the impact of limited funds by avoiding transfers that do not change behavior, typically some potential recipients are excluded on the basis of their characteristics, their actions or at random. This paper uses a laboratory experiment to study the behavior of individuals excluded on different bases from a new incentive that encourages real monetary donations to a public environmental conservation program. We show that the donations from the individuals who were excluded based on prior high contributions fell significantly. Yet the rationale used for exclusion mattered,... (More)

A growing set of policies involve transfers conditioned upon socially desired actions, such as attending school or conserving forest. However, given a desire to maximize the impact of limited funds by avoiding transfers that do not change behavior, typically some potential recipients are excluded on the basis of their characteristics, their actions or at random. This paper uses a laboratory experiment to study the behavior of individuals excluded on different bases from a new incentive that encourages real monetary donations to a public environmental conservation program. We show that the donations from the individuals who were excluded based on prior high contributions fell significantly. Yet the rationale used for exclusion mattered, in that none of the other selection criteria used as the basis for exclusion resulted in negative effects on contributions.

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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Behavioral economics, Economic experiments, Monetary incentives, Spillovers, Targeting
in
Journal of Economic Psychology
volume
59
pages
12 pages
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • wos:000400232000006
  • scopus:85013634600
ISSN
0167-4870
DOI
10.1016/j.joep.2017.02.007
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
ba067257-e103-4fcc-b4b2-971ecbb9e2ae
date added to LUP
2017-03-07 10:26:19
date last changed
2024-02-12 14:55:26
@article{ba067257-e103-4fcc-b4b2-971ecbb9e2ae,
  abstract     = {{<p>A growing set of policies involve transfers conditioned upon socially desired actions, such as attending school or conserving forest. However, given a desire to maximize the impact of limited funds by avoiding transfers that do not change behavior, typically some potential recipients are excluded on the basis of their characteristics, their actions or at random. This paper uses a laboratory experiment to study the behavior of individuals excluded on different bases from a new incentive that encourages real monetary donations to a public environmental conservation program. We show that the donations from the individuals who were excluded based on prior high contributions fell significantly. Yet the rationale used for exclusion mattered, in that none of the other selection criteria used as the basis for exclusion resulted in negative effects on contributions.</p>}},
  author       = {{Alpízar, Francisco and Nordén, Anna and Pfaff, Alexander and Robalino, Juan}},
  issn         = {{0167-4870}},
  keywords     = {{Behavioral economics; Economic experiments; Monetary incentives; Spillovers; Targeting}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{04}},
  pages        = {{87--98}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Journal of Economic Psychology}},
  title        = {{Spillovers from targeting of incentives : Exploring responses to being excluded}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2017.02.007}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.joep.2017.02.007}},
  volume       = {{59}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}