2009/01/01 by Gary Charness, Uri Gneezy · 670 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Decision Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Medicine · Psychology · #Attendance #Computer science #Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #Demographic economics #Economic and Environmental Valuation #Economic growth #Economics #Gerontology #Habit #Incentive #Intervention (counseling) #Medicine #Microeconomics #Obesity #Physical activity #Physical therapy #Psychology #Pulse rate #Scope (computer science) #Social psychology #Waist
paper · doi:10.3982/ecta7416
published in Econometrica 77(3), 909-931 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Can incentives be effective in encouraging the development of good habits? We investigate the post-intervention effects of paying people to attend a gym a number of times during one month. In two studies we find marked attendance increases after the intervention relative to attendance changes for the respective control groups. This is entirely driven by people who did not previously attend the gym on a regular basis. In our second study, we find improvements on health indicators such as weight, waist size, and pulse rate, suggesting the intervention led to a net increase in total physical activity rather than to a substitution away from nonincentivized ones. We argue that there is scope for financial intervention in habit formation, particularly in the area of health.