Designing Incentives for Impatient People: An RCT Promoting Exercise to Manage Diabetes
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · 2026 · Shilpa Aggarwal、Rebecca Dizon-Ross、Ariel Zucker
中文摘要
许多人都缺乏耐心。我们将领域特定贴现引入契约模型，并检验一种在人们对努力缺乏耐心时改进激励的策略：实施时间捆绑契约，使未来努力的报酬随当期努力而递增。基于对印度糖尿病患者一项锻炼激励计划的随机评估，我们发现，时间捆绑契约以低15%的成本产生了与时间可分契约相当的努力水平。此外，在对努力不耐心程度高于中位数的个体中，其表现要好30%。合并各契约来看，相对于对照组，激励使步数增加20%，并改善了血糖。（JEL D86, D91, I12, I18, O12）
Abstract
Many people are impatient. We introduce domain-specific discounting to a contracting model and test a strategy for improving incentives when people are impatient over effort: implement time-bundled contracts that make the payment for future effort increase in current effort. Using a randomized evaluation of an exercise incentive program among diabetics in India, we find that time-bundled contracts generate equivalent effort to time-separable contracts at 15 percent lower cost. Moreover, they perform 30 percent better among individuals with above-median effort impatience. Pooled across contracts, incentives increase steps by 20 percent and improve blood sugar relative to a control group. (JEL D86, D91, I12, I18, O12)