Evidence on the Efficacy of School-Based Incentives for Healthy Living

Harold Cuffe, William Harbaugh (), Jason Lindo, Giancarlo Musto and Glen R. Waddell
Additional contact information
Giancarlo Musto: Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69007, France ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne, Ecully, F-69130, France
Glen R. Waddell: University of Oregon, 1285 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, United States

No 1137, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: We analyze the effects of a school-based incentive program on children’s exercise habits. The program offers children an opportunity to win prizes if they walk or bike to school during prize periods. We use daily child-level data and individual fixed effects models to measure the impact of the prizes by comparing behavior during prize periods with behavior during non-prize periods. Variation in the timing of prize periods across different schools allows us to estimate models with calendar date fixed effects to control for day-specific attributes, such as weather and proximity to holidays. On average, we find that being in a prize period increases riding behavior by sixteen percent, a large impact given that the prize value is just six cents per participating student. We also find that winning a prize lottery has a positive impact on ridership over subsequent weeks ; consider heterogeneity across prize type, gender, age, and calendar month ; and explore differential effects on the intensive versus extensive margins.

Keywords: health; exercise; children; school; incentives; active commuting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://ftp.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2011/1137.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Evidence on the efficacy of school-based incentives for healthy living (2012)
Working Paper: Evidence on the Efficacy of School-Based Incentives for Healthy Living (2012)
Working Paper: Evidence on the Efficacy of School-Based Incentives for Healthy Living (2011)
Working Paper: Evidence on the Efficacy of School-Based Incentives for Healthy Living (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gat:wpaper:1137

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nelly Wirth ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).