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Incentives to Vaccinate

Author

Listed:
  • Pol Campos-Mercade

    (Department of Economics, Lund University)

  • Armando N. Meier

    (Department of Economics, University of Basel)

  • Stephan Meier

    (Columbia Business School, Columbia University)

  • Devin Pope

    (Booth School of Business, University of Chicago)

  • Florian H. Schneider

    (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

  • Erik Wengstroem

    (Department of Economics, Lund University)

Abstract

Whether monetary incentives to change behavior work and how they should be structured are fundamental economic questions. We overcome typical data limitations in a large-scale field experiment on vaccination (N = 5; 324) with a unique combination of administrative and survey data. We find that guaranteed incentives of $20 increase uptake by 13 percentage points in the short run and 9 in the long run. Guaranteed incentives are more e ective than lottery-based, prosocial, or individually-targeted incentives, though all boost vaccinations. There are no unintended consequences on future vaccination or heterogeneities based on vaccination attitudes and incentivized economic preferences. Further, administrative data on relatives shows substantial positive spillovers. Our findings demonstrate the great potential of incentives for improving public health and provide guidance on their design.

Suggested Citation

  • Pol Campos-Mercade & Armando N. Meier & Stephan Meier & Devin Pope & Florian H. Schneider & Erik Wengstroem, 2025. "Incentives to Vaccinate," CEBI working paper series 24-15, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    • Handle: RePEc:kud:kucebi:2415
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    incentives; health behavior; social preferences; prosociality; risk preferences; vaccination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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