The effectiveness of different types of monetary incentives to download the TraceTogether application

• Main Authors: Lim, Mei Hui, Liu, Lingshan, Ng, Shu Min
• Other Authors: Yohanes Eko Riyanto
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Social sciences::Economic development
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/147919
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The effectiveness of different types of monetary incentives in influencing behaviour varies. This study evaluated the effectiveness of different types of monetary incentives in motivating participants to download TraceTogether, a contact tracing application in Singapore. The monetary incentive categories examined are “direct payment”, “gift card”, donation to a charity organisation on behalf of participants (“charity donation”) and giving participants a choice between all incentive types (“choice”). To measure the effectiveness of these monetary incentives, participants’ minimum willingness to accept (WTA) was measured. The minimum WTA to download the TraceTogether application refers to the lowest amount of money that would get participants to download it. Participants’ willingness to download the application was also compared with a control group. This group was asked whether they would download it without any mention of monetary incentives. The main findings of this study were (i) Participants were more willing to download the TraceTogether application with monetary incentives compared to no monetary incentives, (ii) All participants in the “choice” group chose to receive direct payment, (iii) Most participants believed that direct payment would result in the highest number of people downloading a contact tracing application, (iv) “Direct payment”, “gift card” and “choice” had statistically lower minimum WTA than “charity donation” and (v) There is no statistically significant difference between the minimum WTA of “choice” and “direct payment”, “direct payment” and “gift card”, as well as “gift card” and “choice”.