IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp9288.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When Incentives Backfire: Spillover Effects in Food Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Angelucci, Manuela

    (University of Texas at Austin)

  • Prina, Silvia

    (Northeastern University)

  • Royer, Heather

    (University of California, Santa Barbara)

  • Samek, Anya

    (University of Southern California)

Abstract

How do peers influence the impact of incentives? Despite much work on incentives, little is known about the spillover effects of incentives. We investigate two mechanisms by which these effects can occur: through peers' actions and peers' incentives. In a field experiment on snack choice (grapes versus cookies), we randomize who receives incentives, the fraction of peers incentivized, and whether or not it can be observed that peers' choices are incentivized among over 1,500 children in the school lunchroom. Incentives increase the likelihood of initially choosing grapes. However, peer spillover effects can be large enough to undo these positive effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Angelucci, Manuela & Prina, Silvia & Royer, Heather & Samek, Anya, 2015. "When Incentives Backfire: Spillover Effects in Food Choice," IZA Discussion Papers 9288, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp9288.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heather Royer & Mark Stehr & Justin Sydnor, 2015. "Incentives, Commitments, and Habit Formation in Exercise: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Workers at a Fortune-500 Company," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 51-84, July.
    2. Roland G. Fryer, 2011. "Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1755-1798.
    3. John A. List & Anya Samek, 2017. "A Field Experiment on the Impact of Incentives on Milk Choice in the Lunchroom," Public Finance Review, , vol. 45(1), pages 44-67, January.
    4. Uri Gneezy & Stephan Meier & Pedro Rey-Biel, 2011. "When and Why Incentives (Don't) Work to Modify Behavior," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 191-210, Fall.
    5. Angelucci, Manuela & De Giorgi, Giacomo & Rangel, Marcos A. & Rasul, Imran, 2010. "Family networks and school enrolment: Evidence from a randomized social experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 197-221, April.
    6. Sarah Baird & Aislinn Bohren & Berk Ozler & Craig McIntosh, 2014. "Designing Experiments to Measure Spillover Effects," Working Papers 2014-11, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    7. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2013. "Team Incentives: Evidence From A Firm Level Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(5), pages 1079-1114, October.
    8. Eric P. Bettinger, 2012. "Paying to Learn: The Effect of Financial Incentives on Elementary School Test Scores," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 686-698, August.
    9. Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2007. "Estimating Risk Attitudes in Denmark: A Field Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(2), pages 341-368, June.
    10. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce I. Sacerdote & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2003. "The Social Multiplier," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 345-353, 04/05.
    11. Philip Oreopoulos & Daniel Lang & Joshua Angrist, 2009. "Incentives and Services for College Achievement: Evidence from a Randomized Trial," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 136-163, January.
    12. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    13. Rafael Lalive & M. Alejandra Cattaneo, 2009. "Social Interactions and Schooling Decisions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(3), pages 457-477, August.
    14. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    15. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-590, April.
    16. Marianne Bertrand & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2000. "Network Effects and Welfare Cultures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 1019-1055.
    17. Esther Duflo & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "The Role of Information and Social Interactions in Retirement Plan Decisions: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 815-842.
    18. Alan T. Sorensen, 2006. "Social learning and health plan choice," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 929-945, December.
    19. Manuela Angelucci & Giacomo De Giorgi, 2009. "Indirect Effects of an Aid Program: How Do Cash Transfers Affect Ineligibles' Consumption?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 486-508, March.
    20. Ernst Fehr & John A. List, 2004. "The Hidden Costs and Returns of Incentives-Trust and Trustworthiness Among CEOs," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 743-771, September.
    21. Greg Fischer & Dean Karlan & Margaret McConnell & Pia Raffler, 2014. "To Charge or Not to Charge: Evidence from a Health Products Experiment in Uganda," Working Papers 1041, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    22. Greg Fischer, Dean Karlan, Margaret McConnell, and Pia Raffler, 2014. "To Charge or Not to Charge: Evidence from a Health Products Experiment in Uganda - Working Paper 387," Working Papers 387, Center for Global Development.
    23. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    24. George J. Borjas & Lynette Hilton, 1996. "Immigration and the Welfare State: Immigrant Participation in Means-Tested Entitlement Programs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 575-604.
    25. Duflo, Esther & Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "Participation and investment decisions in a retirement plan: the influence of colleagues' choices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 121-148, July.
    26. Nelson, Phillip, 1970. "Information and Consumer Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 311-329, March-Apr.
    27. Mari Rege & Kjetil Telle & Mark Votruba, 2009. "The Effect of Plant Downsizing on Disability Pension Utilization," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(4), pages 754-785, June.
    28. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List & Sally Sadoff, 2016. "The Effect of Performance-Based Incentives on Educational Achievement: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," NBER Working Papers 22107, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Michèle, Belot & Jonathan, James & Patrick, Nolen, 2013. "Changing Eating Habits - A Field Experiment in Primary Schools," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-44, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    30. M. Angelucci & V. Di Maro, 2016. "Programme evaluation and spillover effects," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 22-43, March.
    31. Acland, Dan & Levy, Matthew R., 2015. "Naiveté, projection bias, and habit formation in gym attendance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    32. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2000. "Pay Enough or Don't Pay at All," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 791-810.
    33. Alan T. Sorensen, 2006. "Social learning and health plan choice," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 929-945, December.
    34. Philip Babcock & Kelly Bedard & Gary Charness & John Hartman & Heather Royer, 2015. "Letting Down The Team? Social Effects Of Team Incentives," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(5), pages 841-870, October.
    35. Gary Charness & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Incentives to Exercise," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 909-931, May.
    36. Loewenstein, George & Price, Joseph & Volpp, Kevin, 2016. "Habit formation in children: Evidence from incentives for healthy eating," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 47-54.
    37. Bruce Shearer, 2004. "Piece Rates, Fixed Wages and Incentives: Evidence from a Field Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 513-534.
    38. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    39. Carl Shapiro, 1983. "Premiums for High Quality Products as Returns to Reputations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(4), pages 659-679.
    40. Uri Gneezy & John A List, 2006. "Putting Behavioral Economics to Work: Testing for Gift Exchange in Labor Markets Using Field Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1365-1384, September.
    41. Philip S. Babcock & John L. Hartman, 2010. "Networks and Workouts: Treatment Size and Status Specific Peer Effects in a Randomized Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 16581, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    42. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    43. List, John A. & Samek, Anya Savikhin, 2015. "The behavioralist as nutritionist: Leveraging behavioral economics to improve child food choice and consumption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 135-146.
    44. Lacetera, Nicola & Macis, Mario, 2010. "Do all material incentives for pro-social activities backfire? The response to cash and non-cash incentives for blood donations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 738-748, August.
    45. Robinson, Peter M, 1988. "Root- N-Consistent Semiparametric Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 931-954, July.
    46. Dan Ariely & Anat Bracha & Stephan Meier, 2009. "Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 544-555, March.
    47. Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 1997. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 746-755, September.
    48. David R. Just & Joseph Price, 2013. "Using Incentives to Encourage Healthy Eating in Children," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(4), pages 855-872.
    49. Emir Kamenica, 2012. "Behavioral Economics and Psychology of Incentives," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 427-452, July.
    50. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Frederico Finan, 2009. "Neighborhood Peer Effects in Secondary School Enrollment Decisions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(4), pages 695-716, November.
    51. Enrico Moretti, 2011. "Social Learning and Peer Effects in Consumption: Evidence from Movie Sales," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(1), pages 356-393.
    52. Cawley, John & Price, Joshua A., 2013. "A case study of a workplace wellness program that offers financial incentives for weight loss," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 794-803.
    53. Aizer, Anna & Currie, Janet, 2004. "Networks or neighborhoods? Correlations in the use of publicly-funded maternity care in California," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2573-2585, December.
    54. Lori A. Beaman, 2012. "Social Networks and the Dynamics of Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Refugees Resettled in the U.S," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 128-161.
    55. Joshua Angrist & Victor Lavy, 2009. "The Effects of High Stakes High School Achievement Awards: Evidence from a Randomized Trial," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1384-1414, September.
    56. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
    57. Macours, Karen & Vakis, Renos, 2009. "Changing households'investments and aspirations through social interactions : evidence from a randomized transfer program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5137, The World Bank.
    58. Bandiera, Oriana & Barankay, Iwan & Rasul, Imran, 2013. "Team incentives: evidence from a firm level," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 53141, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huber, Martin & Steinmayr, Andreas, 2017. "A Framework for Separating Individual Treatment Effects From Spillover, Interaction, and General Equilibrium Effects," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 21, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    2. Toni Mora & Beatriz G. Lopez‐Valcarcel, 2018. "Breakfast choice: An experiment combining a nutritional training workshop targeting adolescents and the promotion of unhealthy products," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 306-319, February.
    3. Gravert, Christina & Kurz, Verena, 2017. "Nudging à la carte – A field experiment on food choice," Working Papers in Economics 690, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2017.
    4. Strombotne, Kiersten L. & Fletcher, Jason M. & Schlesinger, Mark J., 2019. "Peer effects of obesity on child body composition," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 49-57.
    5. John A. List & Fatemeh Momeni, 2021. "When Corporate Social Responsibility Backfires: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 8-21, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John A. List & Anya Samek & Terri Zhu, 2022. "Incentives to Eat Healthily: Evidence from a Grocery Store Field Experiment," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(354), pages 489-509, April.
    2. Belot, Michèle & James, Jonathan & Nolen, Patrick, 2016. "Incentives and children's dietary choices: A field experiment in primary schools," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 213-229.
    3. Gordon B. Dahl & Katrine V. L?ken & Magne Mogstad, 2014. "Peer Effects in Program Participation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 2049-2074, July.
    4. Sarah Baird & Aislinn Bohren & Berk Ozler & Craig McIntosh, 2014. "Designing Experiments to Measure Spillover Effects," Working Papers 2014-11, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    5. Gong, Jie & Liu, Tracy Xiao & Tang, Jie, 2021. "How monetary incentives improve outcomes in MOOCs: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 905-921.
    6. Mariana Carrera & Heather Royer & Mark Stehr & Justin Sydnor, 2020. "The Structure of Health Incentives: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(5), pages 1890-1908, May.
    7. Viola S. Ackfeld, 2020. "The Aversion to Monetary Incentives for Changing Behavior," Working Paper Series in Economics 100, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    8. Matteo Bobba & Jérémie Gignoux, 2019. "Neighborhood Effects in Integrated Social Policies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 33(1), pages 116-139.
    9. Condliffe, Simon & Işgın, Ebru & Fitzgerald, Brynne, 2017. "Get thee to the gym! A field experiment on improving exercise habits," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 23-32.
    10. Cappelen, Alexander W & Charness, Gary & Ekström, Mathias & Gneezy, Uri & Tungodden, Bertil, 2017. "Exercise Improves Academic Performance," Working Paper Series 1180, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    11. List, John A. & Samek, Anya Savikhin, 2015. "The behavioralist as nutritionist: Leveraging behavioral economics to improve child food choice and consumption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 135-146.
    12. Augurzky, Boris & Bauer, Thomas K. & Reichert, Arndt R. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Tauchmann, Harald, 2018. "Habit formation, obesity, and cash rewards," Ruhr Economic Papers 750, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    13. Itzik Fadlon & Torben Heien Nielsen, 2019. "Family Health Behaviors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(9), pages 3162-3191, September.
    14. Sarah Baird & Aislinn Bohren & Craig McIntosh & Berk Ozler, 2017. "Optimal Design of Experiments in the Presence of Interference*, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 16-025, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 30 Nov 2017.
    15. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List & Susanne Neckermann & Sally Sadoff, 2016. "The Behavioralist Goes to School: Leveraging Behavioral Economics to Improve Educational Performance," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 183-219, November.
    16. Zack Dorner & Emily Lancsar, 2017. "Intrinsic motivation, health outcomes and the crowding out effect of temporary extrinsic incentives: A lab-in-the-field experiment," Monash Economics Working Papers 18-17, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    17. Dolan, Paul & Galizzi, Matteo M., 2015. "Like ripples on a pond: Behavioral spillovers and their implications for research and policy," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 1-16.
    18. Marco Fabbri & Paolo Nicola Barbieri & Maria Bigoni, 2019. "Ride Your Luck! A Field Experiment on Lottery-Based Incentives for Compliance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4336-4348, September.
    19. Sarah Baird & Aislinn Bohren & Craig McIntosh & Berk Ozler, 2015. "Designing Experiments to Measure Spillover Effects, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 15-021, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Jun 2015.
    20. Omar Al‐Ubaydli & Steffen Andersen & Uri Gneezy & John A. List, 2015. "Carrots That Look Like Sticks: Toward an Understanding of Multitasking Incentive Schemes," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(3), pages 538-561, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    field experiment; spillovers; incentives; food choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9288. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.