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Portrait of Erik Wengström. Photo.

Erik Wengström

Director of Doctoral studies, Department of Economics, Professor

Portrait of Erik Wengström. Photo.

Put a bet on it : Can self-funded commitment contracts curb fitness procrastination?

Author

  • Devon Spika
  • Linnea Wickström Östervall
  • Ulf Gerdtham
  • Erik Wengström

Summary, in English

We investigate the use of a highly scalable intervention to help individuals achieve their physical activity goals: self-funded commitment contracts. Using a randomised experiment, we compare the effect of soft (non-incentivised) and hard (incentivised) contracts among 1629 members of a gym in Stockholm, Sweden. We find a significant positive impact of being offered a hard contract on monthly visits to the gym and the probability of meeting one's contract goal. Relative to the control group, being offered a hard contract significantly increases gym visits by 21%, while being offered a soft contract leads to an 8% increase.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics
  • LU Profile Area: Proactive Ageing
  • Centre for Economic Demography
  • Health Economics
  • EpiHealth: Epidemiology for Health

Publishing year

2024-12

Language

English

Publication/Series

Journal of Health Economics

Volume

98

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Health Sciences

Keywords

  • Commitment contract
  • Gym attendance
  • Incentives
  • Self-control

Status

Published

Research group

  • Health Economics

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0167-6296