Florian Schneider, University of Zurich (Job Market Seminar)

"Financial incentives for vaccination do not have negative unintended consequences"

Abstract

Financial incentives to encourage healthy and prosocial behaviors often trigger initial behavioral change, but a large academic literature cautions against using them. Critics warn that financial incentives can crowd out prosocial motivations and reduce perceived safety and trust, thereby reducing healthy behaviors 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 a 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 programs also has no negative consequences. Our findings inform not only the academic debate on financial incentives for behavior change, but also policy-makers who consider using financial incentives to change behavior.

Contact person: Thomas Markussen