Incentives

If a dedicated plate for meatballs wasn’t weird enough, Ikea created tiny beds with NFC functionality that reward you with in-store vouchers if you keep your smartphone tucked in for seven hours every night for an entire week. But the beds are only available from Ikea UAE stores when you spend over ~$200. [Image: Ikea miniaturized its beds for your smartphone, but they’re only available to customers in the UAE. https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/ikea_bed.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]

Homegrown efforts to redo lawns so they need less water typically don't go over well, even when local governments encourage it.

The government will pay families $500 per child until age three to incentivize births.

In 2021-2022, Michigan had one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the country: 38.5%, ranking third behind Alaska and New Mexico.

Tuition discounts haven’t worked. Nor has mostly free community college. Now, the state is trying sweepstakes to get more teens to fill out financial aid forms. Similar incentives have had mixed success.

Pawnee City, a little more than an hour southeast of Lincoln, has launched a program to reinvigorate the rural town of around 900 people.

Cloudflare has a new AI-generated “honeypot.”

"Work hard, don't work hard—everyone gets the same. So people don't want to work," said Yan Junchang, a farmer in the village of Xiaogang who spearheaded a movement in 1978 that revolutionized China's backward economy.

Perplexity's Super Bowl contest managed to move the needle on its app's downloads. Unlike OpenAI and Google, the AI search engine chose to forgo an

The UK’s grid operator will launch a service next week that will allow homes and businesses to get paid for using less power during times when the grid is strained.

With the latest sales numbers, CEO Carlos Tavares is likely to remain public enemy No. 1 among Stellantis’s network of US car dealerships.

One of the arguments for traffic violation fines is that they make the road a safer place, but does this hold up?

What does it take to stop driving?

With federal aid applications lagging amid a botched federal rollout, Michigan leaders are hoping free pizza might be a motivator for high school students considering college.

Non-brand-name drugs are one inexpensive part of the healthcare system but they’re driving some manufacturers out of business

Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier to donate, but avoid the abuses that some fear from cash payments?

These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.

Why it probz isn’t the best move to go to a town that wants to pay you.

Six people have so far participated in the sustainability campaign this summer, the Telegraph reported.

Nearly four years have passed since Tulsa Remote began promising $10,000 to workers who’d relocate to the Oklahoma city for at least one year. Here’s where that program and similar efforts stand today.

Here are some states that are willing to pay you to move there, as long as you meet certain requirements.

"The reality is, if you can't hit 40,000 donors by middle of August, you have zero chance of beating Joe Biden in an election."

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is offering $20 gift cards to people who donate at least $1 to his presidential campaign. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has promised grassroots fundraisers a 10% cut of the money they bring into his campaign. Other candidates are just pleading for $1 donations or offering campaign swag at a steep discount.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is offering hefty tax breaks to companies to turn offices into housing, the latest example of a city seeking to address the challenges of remote work hitting downtowns and a lack of affordable residences.

Remote workers came for the cash. They stayed for the community.

Don’t worry: The fine went to one of the richest people in Finland.

This game is designed to teach one of the most important fundamental concepts in economics: The idea that incentives matter and people will change their behavior in a predictable way when their incentives change.