Raising the take-up of social assistance benefits through a simple mailing: evidence from a French field experiment

Sylvain Chareyron (1, 2) , David A Gray (3, 2) , Yannick L'Horty (1, 2)

1 ERUDITE - Equipe de Recherche sur l’Utilisation des Données Individuelles en lien avec la Théorie Economique
2 TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques
3 University of Ottawa [Ottawa]

This paper is related to the phenomenon puzzling unduly low take-up rate for social assistance benefits in France. In order to investigate this phenomenon, we conduct an experimental evaluation in the form of a randomized control trial involving the influences of informational availability and complexity. We examine the impact of a change in the information set which is sent to these households just after they claim the benefit, seeking a behavioral response to this particular ‘nudge’. Our findings suggest that a costless action on the part of program administrators is able to substantially increase take-up for certain types of beneficiaries. In order to be effective, these actions should target households according to their individual attributes.

Mots clés: non-take-up of social insurance benefits; RCT; informational nudge

Domaines: Economies et finances

Sylvain Chareyron, David A Gray, Yannick L'Horty. Raising the take-up of social assistance benefits through a simple mailing: evidence from a French field experiment. 2017. ⟨halshs-01521963⟩