Evaluation II

Will break into small groups at 12:05.

For Tuesday, Karch & Rose, introduction, ch. 1-3.

Issue-Attention Cycle at work:  live ammo on movie sets.

• California
• New York

From last time:

Census data rest on self-reporting.  There is no method for verification.

The spike in Native Americans 

Survey: 34% of white Americans who applied to colleges or universities admit to lying about being a racial minority on their application

Constitutional reform (Schuck, ch. 12)

ALL POLICY INVOLVES TRADEOFFS

For discussion:

JAMA Study

Financial Incentives and Other Nudges Do Not Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations among the Vaccine Hesitant

Can financial incentives, public health messages and other behavioral nudges –approaches deployed by state and local governments, employers, and health systems – increase SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates among the vaccine hesitant in the US? In mid-2021, we randomly assigned unvaccinated members of a Medicaid managed care health plan to $10 or $50 financial incentives, different public health messages, a simple appointment scheduler, or control to assess impacts on SARS-CoV-2 vaccination intentions and vaccine uptake within 30 days of intervention. While messages increased vaccination intentions, none of the treatments increased overall vaccination rates. Consistent with backlash concerns, financial incentives and negative messages decreased vaccination rates for some subgroups. Financial incentives and other behavioral nudges do not meaningfully increase SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates amongst the vaccine hesitant.

Full text available for download here:https://www.nber.org/papers/w29403 

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Thirumurthy, Harsha and Milkman, Katherine L. and Volpp, Kevin and Buttenheim, Alison and Pope, Devin G., Association Between Statewide Financial Incentive Programs and COVID-19 Vaccination Rates (August 27, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3912786 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3912786

 

To encourage COVID-19 vaccination, many states in the US have introduced financial incentives ranging from small, guaranteed rewards to lotteries that give vaccinated individuals a chance to win $1 million or more. We compiled information on statewide incentive programs along with data on daily vaccine doses administered per 100,000 individuals in each state. Leveraging variation across states in the daily presence of incentives, we used difference-in-differences regressions to examine the association between these incentive program indicators and vaccination rates. Difference-in-differences analysis showed that 24 statewide incentive programs were associated with a non-significant relative decline in daily vaccination rates of 8.9 per 100,000 individuals (95% CI [-64.3,46.5]; p=0.75). Furthermore, there was no significant difference in vaccination trends between states with and without incentives in any of the 14 days before or after incentives were introduced. Lotteries and other incentives offered by 24 states were not associated with a significant change in COVID-19 vaccination rates. More substantial incentives or mandates may be necessary to raise vaccination rates.