E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
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Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
Can Commitment Bonds Help You stickK to your goals?
Ian Ayres
I’ve helped to create a new company, www.stickK.com, which has just launched. StickK is a free service that offers commitment bonds to help you stick to your goals. You can choose your goal, your stakes and even your referee. For example, you could put $100 at risk each week and promise to lose some weight. If you keep your commitment, you get your money back, if you don’t it goes to charity (or someone that you designate).
Commitment bonds have helped me live a happier life in 2007. I committed to exercise more (and for the first time can do 10 pull ups). I committed to read more (and have had the pleasure of reading more than 40 novels). But most importantly, I committed to lose some weight and keep it off. I put $500 at risk a week and you can see the results in the following graph: The upper blue line shows my “Goal Weight”, the weight that I can’t exceed without losing money. The red-line is my daily weight. For the first time in several attempts, I’ve stopped the yo-yoing. So far, I’ve lost the weight and it hasn’t cost me a penny.
I have hopes that StickK will be an engine for finding out what kind of incentives work the best and for whom.
Before I got tenure at my first job, I was worried about my habit of not finishing papers quickly enough. I tried to enlist a colleague in a scheme whereby I would pay him
$2,500 * (X-Y) * 1(Y<=X),
where X was my target number of papers submitted by some date and Y was the number I actually submitted.
My University of Chicago-trained senior colleague demurred, to my great shock on the grounds that he'd feel badly if I had to pay him!