Calibrations and compliance: the role of motivations in policy instrument design

Abstract Most research on the role of policy calibrations in fostering policy target compliance has focused on the calibration of incentives and deterrents; less attention has been paid to examining the deployment and calibration of a wider range of policy instruments with the intention of eliciting a greater degree of compliance from policy targets with heterogeneous motivations. This article addresses this gap in the literature by empirically testing multiple hypotheses on the relationship between the calibration of different kinds of policy instruments and policy compliance for policy targets characterized by different motivations. Using data from a vignette experiment set in the context of dengue control in Singapore, we measure policy targets’ economic, social, and normative motivations for compliance and relate these to changes in compliance intention resulting from changes in the calibration of authority-, treasure-, and organization-based policy instruments. Our research contributes policy-relevant recommendations on how policy tool calibrations can be employed to target different kinds of policy target motivations and increase overall policy compliance.