Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Papers in Economics,
University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

No 678: Ride Your Luck!A Field Experiment on Lotterybased Incentives for Compliance

Marco Fabbri (), Paolo Nicola Barbieri and Maria Bigoni
Additional contact information
Marco Fabbri: Rotterdam Institute of Law and Economics and Institute of Private Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burg
Paolo Nicola Barbieri: Centre for Health Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Postal: Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG
Maria Bigoni: Department of Economics, University of Bologna

Abstract: We designed a natural-field experiment in the context of local public transportation to test whether rewards in the form of lottery prizes coupled with traditional sanctions effciently reduce free-riding. We organized a lottery in a medium-size Italian city the participation in which is linked to purchasing an on-board bus ticket. The lottery was then implemented in half of otherwise identical buses operating in the municipality. Our theoretical model shows that the introduction of the lottery generated an increase in the number of tickets sold and that it is possible to design a self-financing lottery. To estimate the effect of the lottery's introduction on the amount of tickets sold, we matched and compared treated and control buses operating on the same day on the exact same route. The results show that buses participating in the lottery sold significantly more tickets than the control buses. The increase in revenue from the tickets sold was more than the lottery prize amount.

Keywords: Enforcement; Free-riding; Public Good; Risk Attitudes; Sanctions

JEL-codes: D04; H42

17 pages, November 2016

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