Record Details

Put Your Money Where your Butt Is: A Commitment Contract for Smoking Cessation

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Put Your Money Where your Butt Is: A Commitment Contract for Smoking Cessation
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/28273
 
Creator Giné, Xavier
Karlan, Dean
Zinman, Jonathan
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description This paper presents the results of a financial intervention in the form of savings accounts, of which the total funds will be returned if the holder of the account stops smoking, verified through urine samples. This is in order to test whether this type of financial incentive is a viable option towards the reduction of addictive behaviors. Three treatment arms for the project with one control group. The main intervention was the CARES savings product with deposit collection, where participants deposit a self-determined amount of money into the account, and the return of the full amount of the deposited funds was conditional on clients' smoking cessation tested using the NicCheck urine strip test for nicotine and cotinine. A NicCheck score of 0 (no exposure recent exposure) was accepted, while all others of a maximum of 15 (high exposure) were indicated as not passing. Deposit collection was done on a weekly basis by bank personnel. The second treatment arm was offered the CARES savings product, but without deposit collection, so clients had to go to a bank to make additional deposits. The CARES savings product required a minimum balance of 50 pesos, initially collected by field marketers, and did not yield any interest in order to discourage nonsmokers from opening the account because of the convenience of deposit collection services. The third treatment arm were one of four cue cards with graphic depictions of the negative health consequences of smoking. Six and twelve months after the initial marketing, the bank attempted to administer urine tests to all study subjects. CARES clients were required to take the test or automatically forfeit their deposit balance. Nonclients (including those assigned to cues and control groups) were paid 30 pesos for taking the six month test, and
everyone in the sample was paid 30 pesos for taking the twelve month test.
 
Subject Social Sciences
Smoking cessation
Finance
Savings
Addictive behavior
 
Date 2014
 
Type Surveys, administrative data, medical data (urine tests)