The long-run effects of sports club vouchers for primary school children
- Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the twenty-first century. While small-scale experiments change behaviors among adults in the short run, we know little about the effectiveness of large-scale policies or the longer-run impacts. To nudge primary school children into a long-term habit of exercising, the German state of Saxony distributed sports club membership vouchers among all 33,000 third graders in 2009. In 2018, we carried out a register-based survey to evaluate the policy. Even after a decade, awareness of the voucher program was significantly higher in the treatment group. We also find that youth received and redeemed the vouchers. However, we do not find significant short- or long-term effects on sports club membership, physical activity, overweightness, or motor skills. Apparently, membership vouchers for children are not a strong enough policy tool to overcome barriers to exercise regularly.
Author details: | Jan MarcusORCiDGND, Thomas SiedlerORCiDGND, Nicolas R. ZiebarthORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20200431 |
ISSN: | 1945-7731 |
ISSN: | 1945-774X |
Title of parent work (English): | American economic journal: economic policy |
Publisher: | American Economic Association |
Place of publishing: | Nashville |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2022 |
Publication year: | 2022 |
Release date: | 2024/01/16 |
Volume: | 14 |
Issue: | 3 |
Number of pages: | 38 |
First page: | 128 |
Last Page: | 165 |
Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften |
Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Fachgruppe Volkswirtschaftslehre | |
DDC classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft |
Peer review: | Referiert |