Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP8571
Authors: Giacomo Calzolari; Mattia Nardotto
Abstract: Can people be helped to stick to their plans with a little help from information? We provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the effects of reminders and feedback on investment activities involving up-front costs and delayed benefits, such as education and healthy behavior. By means of a randomized field experiment, we show that simple weekly reminders induce users of a gym to substantially increase their levels of physical exercise. We show that limited attention helps explain our results, and we find evidence of mental accounting in users' response to the stimulus of reminders. These results show that virtuous behavior, such as following a healthy life style, can be promoted without the need for monetary incentives: providing incentives through information is both effective and cheap.
Keywords: feedback; inattention; limited memory; mental accounting; randomized field experiment; reminders; sunk cost
JEL Codes: C93; D03; D11
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| reminders (Y60) | attention (Y60) |
| reminders (Y60) | mental accounting (G41) |
| attention (Y60) | gym attendance (Z29) |
| mental accounting (G41) | gym attendance (Z29) |
| reminders (Y60) | gym attendance (Z29) |