Small Cash Rewards for Big Losers Experimental Insights into the Fight Against the Obesity Epidemic

We complement the empirical evidence on the sustainability of weight loss achieved through cash rewards and, for the first time, rigorously examine the potential of cash rewards to prevent weight cycling. In a three period randomized controlled trial, about 700 obese persons were first assigned to two treatment groups, which were promised cash contingent on the achievement of an individually assigned target weight, and to a control group. Successful participants were subsequently allocated to two treatment groups offered cash rewards for confirming the previously achieved target weight and to a control group. This is the first experiment of this kind that finds effects of weight loss rewards up to 18 months after they were removed. Additional rewards only significantly improve the sustainability of weight loss while they are in place.Die empirische Analyse untersucht zum einen die Nachhaltigkeit einer Gewichtsreduktion, die mittels Geldanreizen erzielt wurde, und zum anderen die Wirksamkeit von Geldanreizen zur Verhinderung des Jo-Jo-Effekts nach einer erfolgreichen Gewichtsreduktion. In einem drei-phasigen Feldexperiment wurden ca. 700 fettleibige Teilnehmer zunächst zufällig auf zwei Anreizgruppen und einer Kontrollgruppe verteilt. Unabhängig von der Gruppenzugehörigkeit sollten ein individuelles Gewichtsreduktionziel erreicht werden, wobei nur Mitglieder der Anreizgruppen eine Geldprämie für das Erreichen des Zieles erhalten konnten. Erfolgreiche Teilnehmer wurden danach erneut zufällig einer Kontrollgruppe und zwei Anreizgruppen zugewiesen, wobei das Halten des Zielgewichts nur für letztere durch eine Geldprämie inzentiviert wurde. Anders als in früheren Experimenten, können Effekt der Abnehmprämie selbst 18 Monate nach ihrem Auslaufen nachgewiesen werden. Monetäre Anreize zur Verhinderung des Jo-Jo-Effekt wirken hingegen nicht über ihr Auslaufen hinaus

Elite Influence? Religion, Economics, and the Rise of the Nazis

Adolf Hitler's seizure of power was one of the most consequential events of the twentieth century. Yet, our understanding of which factors fueled the astonishing rise of the Nazis remains highly incomplete. This paper shows that religion played an important role in the Nazi party's electoral success -- dwarfing all available socioeconomic variables. To obtain the first causal estimates we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the geographic distribution of Catholics and Protestants due to a peace treaty in the sixteenth century. Even after allowing for sizeable violations of the exclusion restriction, the evidence indicates that Catholics were significantly less likely to vote for the Nazi Party than Protestants. Consistent with the historical record, our results are most naturally rationalized by a model in which the Catholic Church leaned on believers to vote for the democratic Zentrum Party, whereas the Protestant Church remained politically neutral

The Protestant Fiscal Ethic: Religious Confession and Euro Skepticism in Germany

During the European sovereign debt crisis, most countries that ran into fiscal trouble had Catholic majorities, whereas countries with Protestant majorities were able to avoid fiscal problems. Survey data show that, within Germany, views on theeuro differ between Protestants and Non-Protestants, too. Among Protestants, concerns about the euro have, compared to Non-Protestants, increased during the crisis, and significantly reduce their subjective wellbeing only. We use the timing of survey interviews and news events in 2011 to account for the endogeneity of euro concerns. Emphasis on moral hazard concerns in Protestant theology may, thus, still shape economic preferences