Commitment products can remedy self-control problems. However, imperfect knowledge about their preferences may (discontinuously) lead individuals to select into incentiveincompatible commitments, which reduce their welfare. I conduct a field experiment in the Philippines (N =913), where low-income individuals were randomly offered a regular-instalment commitment savings product. Individuals chose a personalised savings plan and a default penalty themselves. A majority appears to choose a harmful contract: While the average effect on bank savings is large, 55 percent of clients default, and incur monetary losses. A possible explanation is that the chosen penalties were too low (the commitment was too weak) to overcome clients' self-control problems. Both take-up and default are negatively predicted by measures of sophisticated hyperbolic discounting -suggesting that partial sophisticates adopt weak commitments and then default, while full sophisticates are more cautious about committing, but better able to choose incentive-compatible contracts.

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Behavioral constraints may explain part of low demand for preventive health products. We test the effects of two light-touch psychological interventions on water chlorination and related health and economic outcomes using a randomized controlled trial among 3750 women in rural Kenya. One intervention encourages participants to visualize alternative realizations of the future; one builds participants’ ability to make concrete plans. After 12 weeks, visualization increases objectively measured chlorination, reduces diarrhea episodes among children, and increases savings. Effects on chlorination and savings persist after almost three years. Effects of the planning intervention are weaker and largely insignificant. Analysis of mechanisms suggests both interventions increase self-efficacy – beliefs about one’s ability to achieve desired outcomes. Visualization also increases participants’ skill in forecasting their future utility (Gabaix and Laibson 2017). The interventions do not differentially affect beliefs and knowledge about chlorination. Results suggest simple psychological interventions can increase future-oriented behaviors, including use of preventive health technologies.

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