{"title":"BPP volume 5 issue 3 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2021.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2021.22","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":"5 1","pages":"b1 - b2"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bpp.2021.22","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48035532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"BPP volume 5 issue 3 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2021.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2021.21","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":"5 1","pages":"f1 - f3"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bpp.2021.21","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45594178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I comment on Sunstein's paper proposing ‘Hayekian behavioural economics’. In essence, Sunstein is merely renaming a familiar approach to normative economics, initiated in Sunstein and Thaler's seminal 2003 paper. I argue that this approach cannot fairly be described as in the spirit of Hayek's work. Sunstein's approach is based on a ‘constructivist’ conception of rationality that Hayek consistently criticized. Although both Hayek and Sunstein address ‘knowledge problems’, the two problems are fundamentally different. I develop what I claim are truly Hayekian critiques of Sunstein's claim that fuel economy mandates can be more Hayekian than carbon taxes.
{"title":"How Hayekian is Sunstein's behavioral economics?","authors":"R. Sugden","doi":"10.1017/BPP.2021.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/BPP.2021.11","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 I comment on Sunstein's paper proposing ‘Hayekian behavioural economics’. In essence, Sunstein is merely renaming a familiar approach to normative economics, initiated in Sunstein and Thaler's seminal 2003 paper. I argue that this approach cannot fairly be described as in the spirit of Hayek's work. Sunstein's approach is based on a ‘constructivist’ conception of rationality that Hayek consistently criticized. Although both Hayek and Sunstein address ‘knowledge problems’, the two problems are fundamentally different. I develop what I claim are truly Hayekian critiques of Sunstein's claim that fuel economy mandates can be more Hayekian than carbon taxes.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/BPP.2021.11","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47661110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is a limit to the productive exchange of generalizations about public policy. At some point, as William James reminds us, we must go beyond an initial insight or generalization and get into the weeds. This is what we plan to do in our response to Cass Sunstein’s article ‘Hayekian Behavioral Economics’. While an exegesis of just where Hayek himself would draw the limits of permissible government intervention may be interesting, this is not the main point of Sunstein’s article. What he intends is to persuade the reader that behavioral economic policy has reached the stage where it either can or plausibly could overcome the problems of inadequate knowledge that the two of us have claimed it faces (Rizzo & Whitman, 2009a, 2020). While Sunstein mentions us only once in a footnote, we are not aware of other attempts to elaborate this ‘Hayekian knowledge problem’ in detail. We do not point this out because we are desirous of citations, but because it is indicative of a failure to seriously and comprehensively address the relevant issues. In our prior work, we have laid out a series of specific knowledge problems that behavioral policymaking – particularly of the paternalist stripe – must confront. Sunstein’s latest work does little to address them.
{"title":"The unsolved Hayekian knowledge problem in behavioral economics","authors":"M. Rizzo, G. Whitman","doi":"10.1017/BPP.2021.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/BPP.2021.18","url":null,"abstract":"There is a limit to the productive exchange of generalizations about public policy. At some point, as William James reminds us, we must go beyond an initial insight or generalization and get into the weeds. This is what we plan to do in our response to Cass Sunstein’s article ‘Hayekian Behavioral Economics’. While an exegesis of just where Hayek himself would draw the limits of permissible government intervention may be interesting, this is not the main point of Sunstein’s article. What he intends is to persuade the reader that behavioral economic policy has reached the stage where it either can or plausibly could overcome the problems of inadequate knowledge that the two of us have claimed it faces (Rizzo & Whitman, 2009a, 2020). While Sunstein mentions us only once in a footnote, we are not aware of other attempts to elaborate this ‘Hayekian knowledge problem’ in detail. We do not point this out because we are desirous of citations, but because it is indicative of a failure to seriously and comprehensively address the relevant issues. In our prior work, we have laid out a series of specific knowledge problems that behavioral policymaking – particularly of the paternalist stripe – must confront. Sunstein’s latest work does little to address them.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/BPP.2021.18","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45289915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Despite widespread recognition that behavioral public policy (BPP) needs to move beyond nudging if the field is to achieve more significant impact, problem-solving approaches remain optimized to achieve tactical success and are evaluated by short-term metrics with the assumption of stable systems. As a result, current methodologies may contribute to the development of solutions that appear well formed but become ‘brittle’ in the face of more complex contexts if they fail to consider important contextual cues, broader system forces, and emergent conditions, which can take three distinct forms: contextual, systemic, and anticipatory brittleness. The Covid-19 pandemic and vaccination rollout present an opportunity to identify and correct interventional brittleness with a new methodological approach – strategic BPP (SBPP) – that can inform the creation of more resilient solutions by embracing more diverse forms of evidence and applied foresight, designing interventions within ecosystems, and iteratively developing solutions. To advance the case for adopting a SBPP and ‘roughly right’ modes of inquiry, we use the Covid-19 vaccination rollout to define a new methodological roadmap, while also acknowledging that taking a more strategic approach may challenge current BPP norms.
{"title":"Behavioral brittleness: the case for strategic behavioral public policy","authors":"R. Schmidt, K. Stenger","doi":"10.1017/BPP.2021.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/BPP.2021.16","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Despite widespread recognition that behavioral public policy (BPP) needs to move beyond nudging if the field is to achieve more significant impact, problem-solving approaches remain optimized to achieve tactical success and are evaluated by short-term metrics with the assumption of stable systems. As a result, current methodologies may contribute to the development of solutions that appear well formed but become ‘brittle’ in the face of more complex contexts if they fail to consider important contextual cues, broader system forces, and emergent conditions, which can take three distinct forms: contextual, systemic, and anticipatory brittleness. The Covid-19 pandemic and vaccination rollout present an opportunity to identify and correct interventional brittleness with a new methodological approach – strategic BPP (SBPP) – that can inform the creation of more resilient solutions by embracing more diverse forms of evidence and applied foresight, designing interventions within ecosystems, and iteratively developing solutions. To advance the case for adopting a SBPP and ‘roughly right’ modes of inquiry, we use the Covid-19 vaccination rollout to define a new methodological roadmap, while also acknowledging that taking a more strategic approach may challenge current BPP norms.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-26"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/BPP.2021.16","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57046120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Henrico van Roekel, Joanne Reinhard, S. Grimmelikhuijsen
Abstract Nudging has become a well-known policy practice. Recently, ‘boosting’ has been suggested as an alternative to nudging. In contrast to nudges, boosts aim to empower individuals to exert their own agency to make decisions. This article is one of the first to compare a nudging and a boosting intervention, and it does so in a critical field setting: hand hygiene compliance of hospital nurses. During a 4-week quasi-experiment, we tested the effect of a reframing nudge and a risk literacy boost on hand hygiene compliance in three hospital wards. The results show that nudging and boosting were both effective interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance. A tentative finding is that, while the nudge had a stronger immediate effect, the boost effect remained stable for a week, even after the removal of the intervention. We conclude that, besides nudging, researchers and policymakers may consider boosting when they seek to implement or test behavioral interventions in domains such as healthcare.
{"title":"Improving hand hygiene in hospitals: comparing the effect of a nudge and a boost on protocol compliance","authors":"Henrico van Roekel, Joanne Reinhard, S. Grimmelikhuijsen","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2021.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2021.15","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Nudging has become a well-known policy practice. Recently, ‘boosting’ has been suggested as an alternative to nudging. In contrast to nudges, boosts aim to empower individuals to exert their own agency to make decisions. This article is one of the first to compare a nudging and a boosting intervention, and it does so in a critical field setting: hand hygiene compliance of hospital nurses. During a 4-week quasi-experiment, we tested the effect of a reframing nudge and a risk literacy boost on hand hygiene compliance in three hospital wards. The results show that nudging and boosting were both effective interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance. A tentative finding is that, while the nudge had a stronger immediate effect, the boost effect remained stable for a week, even after the removal of the intervention. We conclude that, besides nudging, researchers and policymakers may consider boosting when they seek to implement or test behavioral interventions in domains such as healthcare.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":"6 1","pages":"52 - 74"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/bpp.2021.15","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44993640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jantsje M. Mol, W. Botzen, J. Blasch, E. Kranzler, H. Kunreuther
Nudges based on social norms (norm-nudges) can be compelling behavioral interventions compared with traditional interventions such as taxes and regulations, but they do not work in all circumstances. We tested two empirical norm-nudge frames in an online experiment on taking measures for flood preparedness with large samples of homeowners (N = 1805) in two European countries, to evaluate the possible interactions between norm-nudge effectiveness, individual characteristics, and intercultural differences. We contrasted these norm-nudge treatments with a control and norm-focusing treatment by asking respondents to express their beliefs about what other respondents would do before making a decision relevant to their own payoff. We find no evidence of a treatment effect, suggesting that our social norm-nudges do not affect flood preparedness in the context of a flood risk investment game.
{"title":"All by myself? Testing descriptive social norm-nudges to increase flood preparedness among homeowners","authors":"Jantsje M. Mol, W. Botzen, J. Blasch, E. Kranzler, H. Kunreuther","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3616189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3616189","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Nudges based on social norms (norm-nudges) can be compelling behavioral interventions compared with traditional interventions such as taxes and regulations, but they do not work in all circumstances. We tested two empirical norm-nudge frames in an online experiment on taking measures for flood preparedness with large samples of homeowners (N = 1805) in two European countries, to evaluate the possible interactions between norm-nudge effectiveness, individual characteristics, and intercultural differences. We contrasted these norm-nudge treatments with a control and norm-focusing treatment by asking respondents to express their beliefs about what other respondents would do before making a decision relevant to their own payoff. We find no evidence of a treatment effect, suggesting that our social norm-nudges do not affect flood preparedness in the context of a flood risk investment game.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-33"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46796143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Regulators require lenders to display a subset of credit card features in summary tables before customers finalize a credit card choice. Some jurisdictions require some features to be displayed more prominently than others to help ensure that consumers are made aware of them. This approach could lead to untoward effects on choice, such that relevant but nonprominent product features do not factor in as significantly. To test this possibility, we instructed a random sample of 1615 adults to choose between two hypothetical credit cards whose features were shown side by side in tables. The sample was instructed to select the card that would result in the lowest financial charges, given a hypothetical scenario. Critically, we randomly varied whether the annual interest rates and fees were made visually salient by making one, both, or neither brighter than other features. The findings show that even among credit-savvy individuals, choice tends strongly toward the product that outperforms the other on a salient feature. As a result, we encourage regulators to consider not only whether a key feature should be made more salient, but also the guidelines regarding when a key feature should be displayed prominently during credit card acquisition.
{"title":"Does the visual salience of credit card features affect choice?","authors":"Matthew D. Hilchey, M. Osborne, D. Soman","doi":"10.1017/BPP.2021.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/BPP.2021.14","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Regulators require lenders to display a subset of credit card features in summary tables before customers finalize a credit card choice. Some jurisdictions require some features to be displayed more prominently than others to help ensure that consumers are made aware of them. This approach could lead to untoward effects on choice, such that relevant but nonprominent product features do not factor in as significantly. To test this possibility, we instructed a random sample of 1615 adults to choose between two hypothetical credit cards whose features were shown side by side in tables. The sample was instructed to select the card that would result in the lowest financial charges, given a hypothetical scenario. Critically, we randomly varied whether the annual interest rates and fees were made visually salient by making one, both, or neither brighter than other features. The findings show that even among credit-savvy individuals, choice tends strongly toward the product that outperforms the other on a salient feature. As a result, we encourage regulators to consider not only whether a key feature should be made more salient, but also the guidelines regarding when a key feature should be displayed prominently during credit card acquisition.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-18"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/BPP.2021.14","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42294129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Behavioral scientists have begun to research ‘sludge,’ excessive frictions that make it harder for people to do what they want to do. Friction is also an important concept in transaction-cost economics. Nevertheless, sludge has been discussed without explicit referral to transaction costs. Several questions arise from this observation. Is the analogy to friction used differently in both literatures? If so, what are the key differences? If not, should we develop the concept of sludge when the well-established literature on transaction costs already exists? This conceptual article shows that sludge and transaction costs are related, but distinct, concepts, and that the literature on sludge can benefit from incorporating elements from transaction-cost research. For example, we suggest defining sludge as aspects of the choice architecture that lead to the experience of costs, organize sludges using a typology inspired by the transaction-cost literature, highlight specificity, uncertainty, and frequency as important determinants of the ‘sludginess’ of choice architecture, and show that sludge audits can be conducted using methods developed in the transaction-cost literature.
{"title":"Sludge and transaction costs","authors":"S. Shahab, Leonhard K. Lades","doi":"10.1017/BPP.2021.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/BPP.2021.12","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Behavioral scientists have begun to research ‘sludge,’ excessive frictions that make it harder for people to do what they want to do. Friction is also an important concept in transaction-cost economics. Nevertheless, sludge has been discussed without explicit referral to transaction costs. Several questions arise from this observation. Is the analogy to friction used differently in both literatures? If so, what are the key differences? If not, should we develop the concept of sludge when the well-established literature on transaction costs already exists? This conceptual article shows that sludge and transaction costs are related, but distinct, concepts, and that the literature on sludge can benefit from incorporating elements from transaction-cost research. For example, we suggest defining sludge as aspects of the choice architecture that lead to the experience of costs, organize sludges using a typology inspired by the transaction-cost literature, highlight specificity, uncertainty, and frequency as important determinants of the ‘sludginess’ of choice architecture, and show that sludge audits can be conducted using methods developed in the transaction-cost literature.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":"372 5","pages":"1-22"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/BPP.2021.12","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41281237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Policy decisions have vast consequences, but there is little empirical research on how best to communicate underlying evidence to decision-makers. Groups in diverse fields (e.g., education, medicine, crime) use brief, graphical displays to list policy options, expected outcomes and evidence quality in order to make such evidence easy to assess. However, the understanding of these representations is rarely studied. We surveyed experts and non-experts on what information they wanted and tested their objective comprehension of commonly used graphics. A total of 252 UK residents from Prolific and 452 UK What Works Centre users interpreted the meaning of graphics shown without labels. Comprehension was low (often below 50%). The best-performing graphics combined unambiguous metaphorical shapes with color cues and indications of quantity. The participants also reported what types of evidence they wanted and in what detail (e.g., subgroups, different outcomes). Users particularly wanted to see intervention effectiveness and quality, and policymakers also wanted to know the financial costs and negative consequences. Comprehension and preferences were remarkably consistent between the two samples. Groups communicating evidence about policy options can use these results to design summaries, toolkits and reports for expert and non-expert audiences.
政策决策会产生巨大的后果,但关于如何最好地向决策者传达潜在证据的实证研究很少。不同领域(如教育、医学、犯罪)的群体使用简短的图形显示来列出政策选项、预期结果和证据质量,以使这些证据易于评估。然而,对这些表征的理解很少被研究。我们调查了专家和非专家想要什么信息,并测试了他们对常用图形的客观理解。来自Prolific的252名英国居民和452名英国What Works Centre用户解释了无标签图形的含义。理解力低(通常低于50%)。表现最好的图形将明确的隐喻形状与颜色线索和数量指示相结合。参与者还报告了他们想要的证据类型和细节(例如,亚组、不同结果)。用户特别希望看到干预的有效性和质量,政策制定者也希望了解财务成本和负面后果。两个样本的理解力和偏好显著一致。交流政策选择证据的小组可以利用这些结果为专家和非专家受众设计摘要、工具包和报告。
{"title":"Communicating evidence in icons and summary formats for policymakers: what works?","authors":"C. Brick, A. Freeman","doi":"10.1017/BPP.2020.54","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/BPP.2020.54","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Policy decisions have vast consequences, but there is little empirical research on how best to communicate underlying evidence to decision-makers. Groups in diverse fields (e.g., education, medicine, crime) use brief, graphical displays to list policy options, expected outcomes and evidence quality in order to make such evidence easy to assess. However, the understanding of these representations is rarely studied. We surveyed experts and non-experts on what information they wanted and tested their objective comprehension of commonly used graphics. A total of 252 UK residents from Prolific and 452 UK What Works Centre users interpreted the meaning of graphics shown without labels. Comprehension was low (often below 50%). The best-performing graphics combined unambiguous metaphorical shapes with color cues and indications of quantity. The participants also reported what types of evidence they wanted and in what detail (e.g., subgroups, different outcomes). Users particularly wanted to see intervention effectiveness and quality, and policymakers also wanted to know the financial costs and negative consequences. Comprehension and preferences were remarkably consistent between the two samples. Groups communicating evidence about policy options can use these results to design summaries, toolkits and reports for expert and non-expert audiences.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-29"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2021-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/BPP.2020.54","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43115802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}