Fostering high vaccination rates was one of the major public-policy challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Policymakers tried various strategies to encourage vaccination, including offering monetary incentives. But will more people really get vaccinated in exchange for money? To find out, Chicago Booth’s Devin G. Pope and his coauthors ran a randomized controlled trial.
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Narrator: During the COVID-19 pandemic, officials strongly encouraged Americans to get vaccinated, but vaccine hesitancy proved the significant barrier. Could something have been done to increase the number of people choosing to get vaccinated? Chicago Booth’s Devin Pope and his coauthors used a randomized controlled trial in Sweden, with more than 5,000 participants who had already received a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, but not a third.
Subjects were randomly assigned to one of five groups: a control group with no incentives, a guaranteed payment of around $20, a lottery incentive, a donation-to-charity incentive, or a choice of the three incentive options. All incentives increased third-dose vaccinations within 30 days.
The guaranteed payment was the most effective, followed by the lottery, and the donation. Guaranteed payments of 200 Swedish kronor, about $24, increased vaccination rates by 13 percentage points over the control group.
The incentives did not reduce the likelihood of participants getting a fourth dose, suggesting they didn’t harm future vaccine behavior. There was also a spillover effect. Partners of participants were more likely to get vaccinated, though no effect was observed for their parents or their children.
The research suggests that monetary incentives are a valuable tool for policymakers to improve health outcomes and reduce the cost burden of disease.
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