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Pay-What-You-Want as a behavioural tool to address consumers’ behaviour and promote a healthier lifestyle

Last registered on March 21, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Pay-What-You-Want as a behavioural tool to address consumers’ behaviour and promote a healthier lifestyle
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009067
Initial registration date
March 17, 2022

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
March 21, 2022, 1:21 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Denmark
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Beatrice Braut
Affiliation
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Sarah Zaccagni
PI Affiliation
University of Copenhagen
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-04-15
End date
2022-09-15
Keywords
Behavior, Health, Lab
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
The aim of the project is to test and develop a new strategy to promote the choice of healthy food. We will run a lab experiment to investigate the impact of the introduction of a Pay-What-You-Want scheme on individual food choices and to evaluate its efficiency compared to standard monetary incentives (and to the absence of incentives). The PWYW scheme offers the subjects the opportunity to personally determine how much they are willing to pay for the healthier choice, reflecting their intrinsic motivation. By promoting healthy food consumption with a PWYW strategy, we hypostatize to have a positive effect on sales and consumption, without adverse effects in terms of socio-economic inequalities in nutrition and policy unpopularity ((Niebylski et al., 2015). Low-income and other vulnerable groups are in fact differently sensible to unhealthy food prices, such that unhealthy food taxes might become regressive. PWYW allows consumers to self-select the price they want to pay and therefore generates endogenous incentives that cannot be too high for the low-income participants.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Braut, Beatrice and Sarah Zaccagni. 2022. "Pay-What-You-Want as a behavioural tool to address consumers’ behaviour and promote a healthier lifestyle." AEA RCT Registry. March 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9067-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2022-05-15
Intervention End Date
2022-05-22

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The outcomes we are interested in are:
• the number of people who change their food choices because of the introduction of the PAYW scheme relative to alternative monetary incentives (efficacy);
• the individual and psychological factors mediating such shift in food choices (mediators);
• the cost of a PAYW scheme versus a traditional incentive (efficiency).
We will collect information on risk preferences (using the BRET task, Crosetto and Filippin, 2013) and cognitive abilities (Frederick, 2005). Few demographic questions will be asked. Data about mood will be also collected. Weather conditions will also be recorded.
Whenever possible data will be matched to National Registers.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will run a lab experiment to investigate the impact of the introduction of a PWYW scheme on individual food choices and to evaluate their efficiency compared to monetary incentives. The underlying idea is that individuals might attribute different (in value but also in sign) economic values to the effort required to renounce the unhealthy choice and prefer the healthy option. If this assumption is correct, a PAYW scheme would offer the subjects the opportunity to personally determine how much they are willing to receive to change their behaviour. The well-known phenomenon of price discrimination in fact occurs automatically in a PWYW model since subjects with higher valuations of the product will choose to pay a higher price while subjects with low intrinsic motivation will choose to pay a lower price (this amount can include zero).
The experiments will consist of two treatment groups and a control group. 180 individuals will be randomized to be included in one of the three groups.
Subjects will be asked to choose snacks to buy with part of the money received at the start of the experiment. They will choose between similar snacks in terms of price, taste and quantity but which differ by how much they are perceived as healthy. In the control group subjects will face the choice between the two products with equal prices. In treatment 1 the healthy product will be discounted. In treatment 2 the price of the healthy product will not be provided and subjects will be asked, in case they choose it, to give (and pay) the price they want.
The experimental session will last around 45 minutes, and subjects will be paid to participate around 120DKK. The payoff of the experimental session will consist of a monetary reward plus a food snack.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
randomization will be performed by the program used to recruit participants (ORSEE).
Randomization Unit
at the individual level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
9 sessions
Sample size: planned number of observations
180 subjects
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
60 (3 sessions with 20 subjects)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials