Financial incentives for vaccination do not have negative unintended consequences
(2023) In Nature 613(7944). p.526-533- Abstract
- Financial incentives to encourage healthy and prosocial behaviours often trigger initial behavioural change, but a large academic literature warns against using them. Critics warn that financial incentives can crowd out prosocial motivations and reduce perceived safety and trust, thereby reducing healthy behaviours when no payments are offered and eroding morals more generally. Here we report findings from a large-scale, pre-registered study in Sweden that causally measures the unintended consequences of offering financial incentives for taking the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. We use a unique combination of random exposure to financial incentives, population-wide administrative vaccination records and rich survey data. We find no... (More)
- Financial incentives to encourage healthy and prosocial behaviours often trigger initial behavioural change, but a large academic literature warns against using them. Critics warn that financial incentives can crowd out prosocial motivations and reduce perceived safety and trust, thereby reducing healthy behaviours when no payments are offered and eroding morals more generally. Here we report findings from a large-scale, pre-registered study in Sweden that causally measures the unintended consequences of offering financial incentives for taking the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. We use a unique combination of random exposure to financial incentives, population-wide administrative vaccination records and rich survey data. We find no negative consequences of financial incentives; we can reject even small negative impacts of offering financial incentives on future vaccination uptake, morals, trust and perceived safety. In a complementary study, we find that informing US residents about the existence of state incentive programmes also has no negative consequences. Our findings inform not only the academic debate on financial incentives for behaviour change but also policy-makers who consider using financial incentives to change behaviour. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/47a56031-513e-4afe-8928-a591d1203443
- author
- Schneider, Florian H ; Campos-Mercade, Pol LU ; Meier, Stephan ; Pope, Devin ; Wengström, Erik LU and Meier, Armando N.
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Nature
- volume
- 613
- issue
- 7944
- pages
- 526 - 533
- publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85146081463
- pmid:36631607
- ISSN
- 0028-0836
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41586-022-05512-4
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 47a56031-513e-4afe-8928-a591d1203443
- date added to LUP
- 2023-01-17 01:58:37
- date last changed
- 2023-02-16 15:06:12
@article{47a56031-513e-4afe-8928-a591d1203443,
abstract = {{Financial incentives to encourage healthy and prosocial behaviours often trigger initial behavioural change, but a large academic literature warns against using them. Critics warn that financial incentives can crowd out prosocial motivations and reduce perceived safety and trust, thereby reducing healthy behaviours when no payments are offered and eroding morals more generally. Here we report findings from a large-scale, pre-registered study in Sweden that causally measures the unintended consequences of offering financial incentives for taking the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. We use a unique combination of random exposure to financial incentives, population-wide administrative vaccination records and rich survey data. We find no negative consequences of financial incentives; we can reject even small negative impacts of offering financial incentives on future vaccination uptake, morals, trust and perceived safety. In a complementary study, we find that informing US residents about the existence of state incentive programmes also has no negative consequences. Our findings inform not only the academic debate on financial incentives for behaviour change but also policy-makers who consider using financial incentives to change behaviour.}},
author = {{Schneider, Florian H and Campos-Mercade, Pol and Meier, Stephan and Pope, Devin and Wengström, Erik and Meier, Armando N.}},
issn = {{0028-0836}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{7944}},
pages = {{526--533}},
publisher = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
series = {{Nature}},
title = {{Financial incentives for vaccination do not have negative unintended consequences}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05512-4}},
doi = {{10.1038/s41586-022-05512-4}},
volume = {{613}},
year = {{2023}},
}