Devin Pope, PhD│CHIBE Research Seminar

Speaker(s)

• 
  Devin Pope, PhD — Steven G. Rothmeier Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

Event Description

Topic: “Incentives to Vaccinate.”

Registration is required to attend this virtual seminar. To register, please visit:
https://upenn.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcudeyqpj4jEtxU_g2JzUkaIkObRgHIxzDU.

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About: Whether monetary incentives to change behavior work and how they should be structured are fundamental economic questions. We overcome typical data limitations in a large-scale field experiment on vaccination (N = 5,324) with a unique combination of administrative and survey data. We find that guaranteed incentives of $20 increase uptake by 13 percentage points in the short run and 9 in the long run. Guaranteed incentives are more effective than lottery-based, prosocial, or individually-targeted incentives, though all boost vaccinations. There are no unintended consequences on future vaccination or heterogeneities based on vaccination attitudes and incentivized economic preferences. Further, administrative data on relatives shows substantial positive spillovers. Our findings demonstrate the great potential of incentives for improving public health and provide guidance on their design.

Devin Pope, PhD, is the Steven G. Rothmeier Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Pope is a behavioral economist that researches a variety of topics at the intersection of economics and psychology. He has published work in top journals of economics (Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, etc.), general science (Science, Nature, etc.), and Management and Psychology (Psychological Science, Management Science, etc.). His research primarily uses observational data and studies how psychological biases play out in important economic markets. Prior to joining Chicago Booth faculty in 2010, Pope was on the faculty at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a PhD in economics from UC Berkeley in 2007 and a BA in economics from Brigham Young University in 2002. Pope also worked as an Amazon Scholar from 2019-2021 and is currently a co-editor at the American Economic Review.

Organizer(s)