Merely subsidizing nets, as opposed to free distribution, used to be a much more popular idea. My understanding is that that model was nuked by this paper showing that demand for nets falls discontinuously at any positive price (60 percentage points reduction in demand when going from 100% subsidy to 90% subsidy). So unless people’s value for their children’s lives are implausibly low, people are making mistakes in their choice of whether or not to purchase a bednet.
New Incentives, another GiveWell top charity, can move people to vaccinate their children with very small cash transfers (I think $10). The fact that $10 can mean the difference between whether people protect their children from life threatening diseases or not is crazy if you think about it.
This is not a rare finding. This paper found very low household willingness to pay for cleaning up contaminated wells, which cause childhood diarrhea and thus death. Their estimates imply that households in rural Kenya are willing to pay at most $770 to prevent their child’s death, which just doesn’t seem plausible. Ergo, another setting where people are making mistakes. Another; demand for motorcycle helmets is stupidly low and implies that Nairobi residents value a statistical life at $220, less than 10% of annual income. Unless people would actually rather die than give up 10% of their income for a year, this is clearly another case where people’s decisions do not reflect their true value.
This is not that surprising if you think about it. People in rich countries and poor countries alike are really bad at investing in preventative health. Each year I dillydally on getting the flu vaccine, even though I know the benefits are way higher than the costs, because I don’t want to make the trip to CVS (an hour out of my day, max). My friend doesn’t wear a helmet when cycling, even at night or in the rain, because he finds it inconvenient. Most of our better health in the rich world doesn’t come from us actively making better health decisions, but from our environment enabling us to not need to make health decisions at all.
I’m pretty sure the personal benefits of getting the flu vaccine for a male in their 20-30s is not much higher than the costs. Agree on the bike helmet thing though.
Merely subsidizing nets, as opposed to free distribution, used to be a much more popular idea. My understanding is that that model was nuked by this paper showing that demand for nets falls discontinuously at any positive price (60 percentage points reduction in demand when going from 100% subsidy to 90% subsidy). So unless people’s value for their children’s lives are implausibly low, people are making mistakes in their choice of whether or not to purchase a bednet.
New Incentives, another GiveWell top charity, can move people to vaccinate their children with very small cash transfers (I think $10). The fact that $10 can mean the difference between whether people protect their children from life threatening diseases or not is crazy if you think about it.
This is not a rare finding. This paper found very low household willingness to pay for cleaning up contaminated wells, which cause childhood diarrhea and thus death. Their estimates imply that households in rural Kenya are willing to pay at most $770 to prevent their child’s death, which just doesn’t seem plausible. Ergo, another setting where people are making mistakes. Another; demand for motorcycle helmets is stupidly low and implies that Nairobi residents value a statistical life at $220, less than 10% of annual income. Unless people would actually rather die than give up 10% of their income for a year, this is clearly another case where people’s decisions do not reflect their true value.
This is not that surprising if you think about it. People in rich countries and poor countries alike are really bad at investing in preventative health. Each year I dillydally on getting the flu vaccine, even though I know the benefits are way higher than the costs, because I don’t want to make the trip to CVS (an hour out of my day, max). My friend doesn’t wear a helmet when cycling, even at night or in the rain, because he finds it inconvenient. Most of our better health in the rich world doesn’t come from us actively making better health decisions, but from our environment enabling us to not need to make health decisions at all.
I think this is the best explanation I’ve seen, it sounds likely to be correct.
I’m pretty sure the personal benefits of getting the flu vaccine for a male in their 20-30s is not much higher than the costs. Agree on the bike helmet thing though.