Information and Incentives: The Economics of Carrots and Sticks

Sticking with Carrots and Sticks (Sticking Points Aside): A Response to Ventakapuram, Goldberg, and Forrow

Corporate Wellness Programs: Implementation Challenges in the Modern American Workplace

Being healthy is important for living well and achieving longevity. In the business realm, furthermore, employers want healthy employees, as these workers tend to be more productive, have fewer rates of absenteeism, and use less of their health insurance resources. This article provides an overview of corporate “wellness” efforts in the American workplace and the concomitant challenges which em...

When Extrinsic Incentives Displace Intrinsic Motivation: Designing Legal Carrots and Sticks to Confront the Challenge of Motivational Crowding-Out

How to Commit (If You Must): Commitment Contracts and the Dual-Self Model

This paper studies how dual-self (Fudenberg and Levine (2006)) decision-makers can use commitment technologies to combat temptation and implement long-run optimal actions. I consider two types of such technologies: carrot contracts (rewards for ‘good’ behavior financed by borrowing from future consumption) and stick contracts (self imposed fines for ‘bad’ behavior). Both types of contracts can ...

There Are Many Purposes for Conditional Incentives to Accessing Healthcare; Comment on “Denial of Treatment to Obese Patients—the Wrong Policy on Personal Responsibility for Health”

This commentary is a brief response to Nir Eyal’s argument that health policies should not make healthy behaviour a condition or prerequisite in order to access healthcare as it could result in the people who need healthcare the most not being able to access healthcare. While in general agreement due to the shared concern for equity, I argue that making health behaviour a condition to accessing...