Low-cost approaches to increasing gym attendance

Timothy K M Beatty; Bhagyashree Katare

doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2018.05.006

Low-cost approaches to increasing gym attendance

J Health Econ. 2018 Sep:61:63-76. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2018.05.006. Epub 2018 Jun 15.

Authors

Timothy K M Beatty¹, Bhagyashree Katare²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, United States. Electronic address: tbeatty@ucdavis.edu.
² Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, 403 W. State St., West Lafayette, IN 47907, United States. Electronic address: bkatare@purdue.edu.

PMID: 30053711
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2018.05.006

Abstract

We investigate the effect of two low-cost experimental interventions designed to increase physical exercise: a lottery based financial incentive and a social norming treatment. The lottery intervention provides a financial incentive to increase physical activity whereas the social norming intervention attempts to increase physical activity by providing feedback to individuals on their own and their peers' physical exercise activity. We find the larger of our two lottery treatments yields a positive and statistically significant effect on physical activity at modest cost, whereas our social norming treatment has no detectable effect.

Keywords: Financial incentive; Lottery; Physical exercise; Social norms.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Exercise* / psychology
Female
Health Promotion / economics
Health Promotion / methods*
Humans
Male
Motivation
Reward
Social Behavior
Students / psychology
Students / statistics & numerical data
Universities