55. This Vaccine Lottery Seemed Like a Great Idea. Why Didn’t it Work?

Freakonomics, M.D.

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture, Science

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

Behavioral economists say “regret lotteries” are powerful motivational tools. When Philadelphia tried one in 2021, the results were disappointing. Bapu looks at how incentives can backfire — and what we can learn from failures.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the spring of 2021, the behavioral scientists Katie Milkman received an unexpected message.
0:10.6	The vaccine roll out in the US was just starting to gain real speed and we had moved beyond
0:18.6	the oldest most vulnerable Americans and policymakers suddenly started to recognize there was
0:25.7	going to be a cliff in terms of demand that soon the supply would exceed the demand.
0:30.1	So I actually got an email from two Nobel laureates which doesn't happen to me every day.
0:36.0	I don't know about you. The two Nobel laureates were Richard Thaler from the University of Chicago
0:42.5	and Daniel Kahneman, now a professor emeritus at Princeton University. Like Katie, their work is
0:48.6	focused on the intersection of economics, behavioral science, and psychology. Now they were thinking
0:54.9	about COVID vaccines. Katie works on getting people to change their behavior and they wanted to
1:00.4	pick a brain. So you know, classic question, two Nobel laureates email you and ask if you want to
1:05.7	hop on the phone, what do you say? So I got on that phone call and we started talking and trying
1:11.7	to figure out, okay, this is a good idea. We should try a vaccine lottery. They could have just
1:16.0	entered everyone who got the vaccine into a lottery as a reward. They tried something else.
1:22.0	We designed this is what's called a regret lottery. So a regret lottery is a lottery where
1:27.2	everybody is entered and we then draw a name and say we draw your name, Bob, we call you and say,
1:33.8	hey, you won $50,000, but only if you can provide proof that you were vaccinated before today.
1:40.8	And so if you haven't been vaccinated and you get that phone call, you have to politely decline.
1:46.2	That's why it's called a regret lottery. The purpose of this regret lottery, which took place in
1:50.8	the city of Philadelphia, was to incentivize people to get their COVID vaccines. Who would want to
1:56.6	hear they could have won a big cash prize if only the already gotten vaccinated. Historically,
2:03.0	regret lottery have been powerful tools in public health and research has shown that they can
2:08.0	actually get people to make better medical decisions. Katie and the Nobel laureates were hopeful
	...

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