Towards an understanding of the welfare effects of nudges: Evidence from a field experiment in Uganda

E.H. Bulte*, J. List, Daan van Soest

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Social scientists have recently explored how framing of gains and losses affects productivity. We conducted a field experiment in peri-urban Uganda, and compare output levels across 1000 workers over isomorphic tasks and incentives, framed as either losses or gains. We find that loss aversion can be leveraged to increase the productivity of labor. The estimated welfare costs of using the loss contract are quite modest – perhaps because the loss contract is viewed as a (soft) commitment device.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2329-2353
JournalEconomic Journal
Volume130
Issue number632
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2020

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