When Do Reminders Work? Memory Constraints and Medical Adherence

Kai Barron, Mette Trier Damgaard and Christina Gravert

No 9996, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: An extensive literature shows that reminders can successfully change behavior. Yet, there exists substantial unexplained heterogeneity in their effectiveness, both: (i) across studies, and (ii) across individuals within a particular study. This paper investigates when and why re-minders work. We develop a theoretical model that highlights three key mechanisms through which reminders may operate. To test the predictions of the model, we run a nationwide field experiment on medical adherence with over 4000 pregnant women in South Africa and document several key results. First, we find an extremely strong baseline demand for reminders. This demand increases after exposure to reminders, suggesting that individuals learn how valuable they are for freeing up memory resources. Second, stated adherence is increased by pure reminders and reminders containing a moral suasion component, but interestingly, reminders containing health information reduce adherence in our setting. Using a structural model, we show that heterogeneity in memory costs (or, equivalently, annoyance costs) is crucial for explaining the observed behavior.

Keywords: nudging; reminders; memory; attention; medication adherence; structural model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D04 D91 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: When do reminders work? Memory constraints and medical adherence (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9996

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