Paying Not to Go to the Gym
By STEFANO DELLAVIGNA
AND

ULRIKE MALMENDIER*

How do consumers choose from a menu of contracts? We analyze a novel dataset from three U.S. health clubs with information on both the contractual choice and the day-to-day attendance decisions of 7,752 members over three years. The observed consumer behavior is difficult to reconcile with standard preferences and beliefs. First, members who choose a contract with a flat monthly fee of over $70 attend on average 4.3 times per month. They pay a price per expected visit of more than $17, even though they could pay $10 per visit using a 10-visit pass. On average, these users forgo savings of $600 during their membership. Second, consumers who choose a monthly contract are 17 percent more likely to stay enrolled beyond one year than users committing for a year. This is surprising because monthly members pay higher fees for the option to cancel each month. We also document cancellation delays and attendance expectations, among other findings. Leading explanations for our findings are overconfidence about future self-control or about future efficiency. Overconfident agents overestimate attendance as well as the cancellation probability of automatically renewed contracts. Our results suggest that making inferences from observed contract choice under the rational expectation hypothesis can lead to biases in the estimation of consumer preferences. (JEL D00, D12, D91)

“Saturday 31 December. New Year’s Resolutions. I WILL [...] go to the gym three times a week not merely to buy sandwich.” Bridget Jones’s Diary: A Novel “Monday 28 April. [...] Gym visits 0, no. of gym visits so far this year 1, cost of gym membership per year £370; cost of single gym visit £123 (v. bad economy).” Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason Many firms offer consumers a menu of contracts. Cellular phone users choose combina* DellaVigna: