Rebates as incentives: The effects of a gym membership reimbursement program.

Rebates as incentives: The effects of a gym membership reimbursement program.

Homonoff, Tatiana;Willage, Barton;Willén, Alexander;
journal of health economics 2020 Vol. 70 pp. 102285
267
homonoff2020rebatesjournal

Abstract

A rich experimental literature demonstrates positive effects of pay-per-visit fitness incentives. However, most insurance plans that provide fitness incentives follow a different structure, offering membership reimbursements conditional on meeting a specific attendance threshold. We provide the first evidence in the literature on gym incentives of this structure, exploiting the introduction and subsequent discontinuation of a large-scale wellness program at a major American university. Our analysis leverages individual-level administrative data on gym attendance for the universe of students over a five-year period: the three years that the policy was in place, one year before implementation, and one year after termination. This provides us with 100,000 student-year observations and 1.5 million gym visits. Using bunching methods and difference-in-difference designs, we provide four empirical results. First, we document that the policy led to significant bunching at the attendance threshold. Second, we show that the program increased average gym visits by almost five visits per semester, a 20% increase from the mean. Third, we find that the policy not only motivated students who were previously near the threshold, but rather increased attendance across the entire visit distribution. Finally, we show that approximately 50% of the effect persists a year after program termination. Taken together, these results suggest that rebate-framed incentives with a high attendance threshold can induce healthy behaviors in the short-term, and that these positive behaviors persist even after the incentives have been removed.

Citation

ID: 90268
Ref Key: homonoff2020rebatesjournal
Use this key to autocite in SciMatic or Thesis Manager

References

Blockchain Verification

Account:
NFT Contract Address:
0x95644003c57E6F55A65596E3D9Eac6813e3566dA
Article ID:
90268
Unique Identifier:
S0167-6296(19)31036-7
Network:
Scimatic Chain (ID: 481)
Loading...
Blockchain Readiness Checklist
Authors
Abstract
Journal Name
Year
Title
5/5
Creates 1,000,000 NFT tokens for this article
Token Features:
  • ERC-1155 Standard NFT
  • 1 Million Supply per Article
  • Transferable via MetaMask
  • Permanent Blockchain Record
Blockchain QR Code
Scan with Saymatik Web3.0 Wallet

Saymatik Web3.0 Wallet