2021, Mireille Jacobson, "Financial Incentives, Nudges, and Vaccine Take-up"

Increasing the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated against COVID-19 is a critical US public health objective. Employers, government officials, and healthcare providers are trying various strategies to increase vaccine take-up, including financial incentives and reminders delivered by text message and in other formats. A new study (29403) reports the findings from a randomized trial in California that evaluated the impact of a battery of incentive programs on vaccine-hesitant individuals. NBER Researchers Mireille Jacobson of the University of Southern California (USC) and Manisha Shah of the University of California Los Angeles, along with Tom Chang of USC and Rajiv Pramanik and Samir Shah of Contra Costa Health Services, found that nudges and incentives increased self-reported intentions to obtain a vaccine but did not raise actual vaccination rates. Jacobson summarizes the study's findings in the video above. An archive of NBER videos on pandemic-related research may be found here.