Sunk Costs and Exercising

Last registered on May 03, 2023

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Sunk Costs and Exercising

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0011331

Initial registration date

April 25, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

May 03, 2023, 4:10 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name

Raphael Epperson

Affiliation

Universtiy of Innsbruck

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Wolfgang Habla

PI Affiliation

Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW)

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PI Name

Matthias Wibral

PI Affiliation

Maastricht University

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Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2023-03-01

End date

2024-04-30

Keywords

Behavior, Health

Additional Keywords

Sunk costs, health behavior, exercising

JEL code(s)

D91, I12

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This project investigates potential sunk-cost effects on exercising behavior by providing a discount on membership fees to randomly selected individuals who recently signed a 12-month or 24-month contract at a fitness chain. Individuals in treatment Early Discount receive a 50% discount on their membership fee for two consecutive months at an early stage of their membership (the 2nd and 3rd, or 3rd and 4th, month of the current membership contract, respectively). To gain a deeper understanding of how individuals mentally account for sunk costs, individuals in treatment Late Discount receive the same 50% discount on their membership fee for two consecutive months, but at a later stage of their membership (in the 8th and 9th, or 9th and 10th, month of the current contract, respectively). At the beginning of the intervention, individuals in both treatment groups receive an email in which they are informed about their discounts. Individuals in the control group also receive an email to control for reminder effects.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Epperson, Raphael, Wolfgang Habla and Matthias Wibral. 2023. "Sunk Costs and Exercising." AEA RCT Registry. May 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11331-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention consists of a discount on the membership fee of randomly selected members, along with an email informing individuals about their discount. The discount is either applied to two early months or two later months of the contract period.

Intervention Start Date

2023-04-26

Intervention End Date

2023-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Average number of weekly gym visits

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Based on check-in data of members at the fitness chain, we calculate the average number of gym visits per member for given periods of interest (see pre-analysis plan).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Membership renewal at the end of the 12-month contracts

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Each individual is randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Individuals in treatment Early Discount receive a 50% discount on their membership fee for two consecutive months at an early stage of their membership. Individuals in treatment Late Discount receive a 50% discount on their membership fee for two consecutive months at a later stage of their membership. Individuals in the control group do not receive a discount.

At the beginning of the intervention, all individuals receive an email that informs them about some general aspects related to the fitness chain. Members in treatments Early Discount and Late Discount are additionally informed about their discount and its timing.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

The randomization is stratified by two variables: the monthly membership fee of the purchased contract (five categories) and the sex of the individual (male or no male, the second category includes one individual without information). Hence, there are 10 strata. In each stratum, 60% of individuals are assigned to the control group, 20% are assigned to the treatment Early Discount, and 20% are assigned to the treatment Late Discount. If a stratum has a size that cannot be perfectly divided according to these shares (i.e., is not divisible by 5), the number of individuals assigned to a treatment for the remainder is determined by randomly drawing from a vector of five treatment assignments (3 control group, 1 Early Discount, 1 Late Discount) without replacement. The randomization is implemented with R.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?