This paper examines weight loss and the formation of healthy habits through cash rewards in the context of a multi-phase randomized controlled trial involving 700 obese individuals. We find effects of monetary incentives for weight loss of up to EUR 300 on body weight during all experimental...

We complement the empirical evidence on the sustainability of weight loss achieved through cash rewards and, for the first time, rigorously examine the potential of cash rewards to prevent weight cycling. In a three period randomized controlled trial, about 700 obese persons were first assigned...

We complement the empirical evidence on the sustainability of weight loss achieved through cash rewards and, for the first time, rigorously examine the potential of cash rewards to prevent weight cycling. In a three period randomized controlled trial, about 700 obese persons were first assigned...

In this paper we investigate the influence of financial incentives on agents' commitment success who use a self-bet mechanism to overcome their self-control problems. We use results from the theoretical model developed in Hirt-Schierbaum and Ivets (2020) that allows for heuristic bias in agents'...

This paper analyzes whether moderate weight reduction improves subjective health perception in obese individuals. To cure possible endogeneity bias in the regression analysis, we use randomized monetary weight loss incentives as instrument for weight change. In contrast to related earlier work...

In 2008, Uganda granted hundreds of small groups $400/person to help members start individual skilled trades. Four years on, an experimental evaluation found grants raised earnings by 38% (Blattman, Fiala, Martinez 2014). We return after 9 years to find these start-up grants raised earnings and...

Communication is well known to increase cooperation rates in social dilemma situations, but the exact mechanisms behind this have been questioned and discussed. This study examines the impact of communication on public good provisioning in an artefactual field experiment conducted with 216...

We compare the behavior and welfare effects of two popular behavioral interventions for resource conservation. The first intervention is social comparison reports (SC), primarily providing consumers with information motivating behavioral change. The second intervention is real-time feedback...

Many policy interventions in the environmental sector aim at changing environmental preferences, because these provide the basis for adopting environmental conservation behavior or technologies. To evaluate these changes, standard measurement tools in survey-based impact evaluations have their...

When properly implemented, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) can achieve a high degree of internal validity. Yet, if an RCT is to inform policy interventions that extend beyond the experimental population, it is critical to establish external validity. In this paper, we first present a...