S. Lipman, N. Boderie, J. Been, H. van Kippersluis
The effectiveness and uptake of financial incentives can differ substantially between reward- and deposit-based incentives. Therefore, it is unclear to whom and how different incentives should be assigned. In this study, the effect of different modes of assigning reward- and deposit-based financial incentives on effort is explored in a two-session experiment. First, students’ (n = 228, recruited online) discounting, loss aversion and willingness to pay a deposit were elicited. Second, an incentivized real-effort task was completed (n = 171, 25% drop-out). Two modes of assigning reward- or deposit-based financial incentives were compared: random assignment and ‘nudged’ assignment – assignment based on respondent characteristics allowing opting out. Our results show that respondents receiving nudged assignment earned more and persisted longer on the real-effort task than respondents randomly assigned to incentives. We find no differences in effectiveness between reward-based or deposit-based incentives. Overall, 39% of respondents in the nudged assignment mode followed-up the advice to take deposit-based incentives. The effect of deposit-based incentives was larger for the respondents who followed-up the advice than for respondents that randomly received deposit-based incentives. Overall, these findings suggest that nudged assignment may increase incentives’ effect on effort. Future work should extend this approach to other contexts (e.g., behaviour change).
{"title":"Deposit? Yes, please! The effect of different modes of assigning reward- and deposit-based financial incentives on effort","authors":"S. Lipman, N. Boderie, J. Been, H. van Kippersluis","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.22","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The effectiveness and uptake of financial incentives can differ substantially between reward- and deposit-based incentives. Therefore, it is unclear to whom and how different incentives should be assigned. In this study, the effect of different modes of assigning reward- and deposit-based financial incentives on effort is explored in a two-session experiment. First, students’ (n = 228, recruited online) discounting, loss aversion and willingness to pay a deposit were elicited. Second, an incentivized real-effort task was completed (n = 171, 25% drop-out). Two modes of assigning reward- or deposit-based financial incentives were compared: random assignment and ‘nudged’ assignment – assignment based on respondent characteristics allowing opting out. Our results show that respondents receiving nudged assignment earned more and persisted longer on the real-effort task than respondents randomly assigned to incentives. We find no differences in effectiveness between reward-based or deposit-based incentives. Overall, 39% of respondents in the nudged assignment mode followed-up the advice to take deposit-based incentives. The effect of deposit-based incentives was larger for the respondents who followed-up the advice than for respondents that randomly received deposit-based incentives. Overall, these findings suggest that nudged assignment may increase incentives’ effect on effort. Future work should extend this approach to other contexts (e.g., behaviour change).","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47501031","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 growing public concern about the ‘unfairness’ of many pricing practices that have become common in consumer, particularly digital, markets. Industrial and behavioural economists have developed theories that explain the conditions under which these practices are profitable for firms, and their implications for consumer welfare. We identify a mismatch between the welfare economic principles used in this theoretical work and the normative perspective in which these practices are viewed as unfair. We develop a concept of ‘transactional fairness’, grounded in the normative approach of Sugden's Community of Advantage, that is reflective of public concerns. Transactional fairness is complementary to established criteria of economic efficiency and distributional equity but is based entirely on the relationship between individual buyers and sellers. It establishes clear principles with realistic information requirements that are appropriate for compliance by firms. Regulation based on this approach can help to restore public faith in markets.
{"title":"Transactional fairness in consumer markets","authors":"B. Lyons, R. Sugden","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.23","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 There is growing public concern about the ‘unfairness’ of many pricing practices that have become common in consumer, particularly digital, markets. Industrial and behavioural economists have developed theories that explain the conditions under which these practices are profitable for firms, and their implications for consumer welfare. We identify a mismatch between the welfare economic principles used in this theoretical work and the normative perspective in which these practices are viewed as unfair. We develop a concept of ‘transactional fairness’, grounded in the normative approach of Sugden's Community of Advantage, that is reflective of public concerns. Transactional fairness is complementary to established criteria of economic efficiency and distributional equity but is based entirely on the relationship between individual buyers and sellers. It establishes clear principles with realistic information requirements that are appropriate for compliance by firms. Regulation based on this approach can help to restore public faith in markets.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48959880","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}
The purpose of this paper is to first review William James's explicit positions on paternalism in the context of medical licensure and the annexation of the Philippines. Then I wish to show that these positions, as well as a more generalized antipaternalist stance, are the implications of James's philosophy and psychology and not simply his ‘personal’ sentiments. The elements of James's thought are arranged in such a way as to facilitate a comparison with contemporary behavioral (heuristics and biases) paternalism. The conclusion is that James has arguments against behavioral paternalism avant la lettre that are still useful and deserve discussion.
{"title":"The antipaternalist psychology of William James","authors":"M. Rizzo","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.20","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The purpose of this paper is to first review William James's explicit positions on paternalism in the context of medical licensure and the annexation of the Philippines. Then I wish to show that these positions, as well as a more generalized antipaternalist stance, are the implications of James's philosophy and psychology and not simply his ‘personal’ sentiments. The elements of James's thought are arranged in such a way as to facilitate a comparison with contemporary behavioral (heuristics and biases) paternalism. The conclusion is that James has arguments against behavioral paternalism avant la lettre that are still useful and deserve discussion.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47201030","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}
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{"title":"A symposium on the behavioural limits of the state","authors":"Adam Oliver","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.17","url":null,"abstract":"An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135743003","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, Laura M. Giurge, C. Schott, L. Tummers
Nudges are widely employed tools within organizations, but they are often criticized for harming autonomy and for being ineffective. We assess these two criticisms simultaneously: can nudges be both autonomy-preserving and effective in changing behavior? We developed three nudges – an opinion leader nudge, a rule-of-thumb and self-nudges – to reduce a particularly sticky behavior: email use. In a survey experiment of 4,112 healthcare employees, we tested their effect on perceived autonomy and subjective effectiveness. We also tested traditional policy instruments for comparison. Next, to assess objective effectiveness, we conducted a quasi-field experiment in a large healthcare organization with an estimate of 1,189 active email users. We found that each nudge in isolation, but especially when combined, was perceived to be both autonomy-preserving and effective, and more so than traditional policy instruments like an access limit or a monetary reward. We also found some evidence that the combination of all nudges decreased actual email use. This paper advances the literature by showing how innovations in nudge design improve nudges’ ability to be autonomy-preserving and effective.
{"title":"Nudges can be both autonomy-preserving and effective: evidence from a survey and quasi-field experiment","authors":"Henrico van Roekel, Laura M. Giurge, C. Schott, L. Tummers","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.18","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Nudges are widely employed tools within organizations, but they are often criticized for harming autonomy and for being ineffective. We assess these two criticisms simultaneously: can nudges be both autonomy-preserving and effective in changing behavior? We developed three nudges – an opinion leader nudge, a rule-of-thumb and self-nudges – to reduce a particularly sticky behavior: email use. In a survey experiment of 4,112 healthcare employees, we tested their effect on perceived autonomy and subjective effectiveness. We also tested traditional policy instruments for comparison. Next, to assess objective effectiveness, we conducted a quasi-field experiment in a large healthcare organization with an estimate of 1,189 active email users. We found that each nudge in isolation, but especially when combined, was perceived to be both autonomy-preserving and effective, and more so than traditional policy instruments like an access limit or a monetary reward. We also found some evidence that the combination of all nudges decreased actual email use. This paper advances the literature by showing how innovations in nudge design improve nudges’ ability to be autonomy-preserving and effective.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49441836","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}
L. Berger, Jonathan Farrar, Lu Y. Zhang, Joanna Andrejkow
We provide behavioral insights into the economic substitution phenomenon among front-loaded and back-loaded tax-sheltered savings plans. We conduct three behavioral studies with adult Canadian participants to show experimentally that substitution can occur and to explain why substitution can occur. The first study shows that participants transfer savings from a front-loaded plan to a back-loaded plan when the latter becomes available, consistent with a substitution effect. The second study examines how participants trade-off two unique features of back-loaded and front-loaded savings plans. Our results indicate that participants favor the back-loaded tax feature and a variable contribution limit (offered in a front-loaded plan). As participants prefer one feature from each type of plan, this finding can help explain why substitution occurs. The third study provides participants a categorization task with various household budgeting items, including savings items. Results show that 68.1% of participants categorize multiple tax-sheltered savings plans in the same mental account, again consistent with a substitution effect under a budget constraint. As both tax-sheltered savings plans in Canada are used for different purposes, this finding shows that participants tend not to distinguish between the purpose of saving in each account, consistent with a substitution phenomenon.
{"title":"A behavioural investigation of the substitution phenomenon between tax-sheltered savings plans","authors":"L. Berger, Jonathan Farrar, Lu Y. Zhang, Joanna Andrejkow","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.16","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We provide behavioral insights into the economic substitution phenomenon among front-loaded and back-loaded tax-sheltered savings plans. We conduct three behavioral studies with adult Canadian participants to show experimentally that substitution can occur and to explain why substitution can occur. The first study shows that participants transfer savings from a front-loaded plan to a back-loaded plan when the latter becomes available, consistent with a substitution effect. The second study examines how participants trade-off two unique features of back-loaded and front-loaded savings plans. Our results indicate that participants favor the back-loaded tax feature and a variable contribution limit (offered in a front-loaded plan). As participants prefer one feature from each type of plan, this finding can help explain why substitution occurs. The third study provides participants a categorization task with various household budgeting items, including savings items. Results show that 68.1% of participants categorize multiple tax-sheltered savings plans in the same mental account, again consistent with a substitution effect under a budget constraint. As both tax-sheltered savings plans in Canada are used for different purposes, this finding shows that participants tend not to distinguish between the purpose of saving in each account, consistent with a substitution phenomenon.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42997296","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}
Abstract Behavioural public policy is increasingly interested in scaling-up experimental insights to deliver systemic changes. Recent evidence shows some forms of individual behaviour change, such as nudging, are limited in scale. We argue that we can scale-up individual behaviour change by accounting for nuanced social complexities in which human responses to behavioural public policies are situated. We introduce the idea of the ‘social brain’, as a construct to help practitioners and policymakers facilitate a greater social transmission of welfare-improving behaviours. The social brain is a collection of individual human brains, who are connected to other human brains through ‘social cues’, and who are affected by the material and immaterial properties of the physical environment in which they are situated (‘social complex’). Ignoring these cues and the social complex runs the risk of fostering localised behavioural changes, through individual actors, which are neither scalable nor lasting. We identify pathways to facilitate changes in the social brain: either through path dependencies or critical mass shifts in individual behaviours, moderated by the brain's property of social cohesion and multiplicity of situational and dispositional factors. In this way, behavioural changes stimulated in one part of the social brain can reach other parts and evolve dynamically. We recommend designing public policies that engage different parts of the social brain.
{"title":"Behavioural public policies for the social brain","authors":"Sanchayan Banerjee, Siddhartha Mitra","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.15","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Behavioural public policy is increasingly interested in scaling-up experimental insights to deliver systemic changes. Recent evidence shows some forms of individual behaviour change, such as nudging, are limited in scale. We argue that we can scale-up individual behaviour change by accounting for nuanced social complexities in which human responses to behavioural public policies are situated. We introduce the idea of the ‘social brain’, as a construct to help practitioners and policymakers facilitate a greater social transmission of welfare-improving behaviours. The social brain is a collection of individual human brains, who are connected to other human brains through ‘social cues’, and who are affected by the material and immaterial properties of the physical environment in which they are situated (‘social complex’). Ignoring these cues and the social complex runs the risk of fostering localised behavioural changes, through individual actors, which are neither scalable nor lasting. We identify pathways to facilitate changes in the social brain: either through path dependencies or critical mass shifts in individual behaviours, moderated by the brain's property of social cohesion and multiplicity of situational and dispositional factors. In this way, behavioural changes stimulated in one part of the social brain can reach other parts and evolve dynamically. We recommend designing public policies that engage different parts of the social brain.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135568382","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":"John A. List: The Voltage Effect—How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale New York, NY, Currency, 2022, 288 pp.","authors":"Nopadol Rompho","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.14","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42812053","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}
Abstract Public policies often involve “norm nudging”, the use of norm information to steer individual behavior in a prosocial direction. Analysis of social norm messaging often concentrates on the outcome measure: the potential change in behavior. The cognitive and psychological processes that underlie individuals’ response to norm information, especially the inferences they draw, are usually overlooked. This knowledge gap may lead to adverse consequences, such as messages backfiring. To (factually) justify norm nudging interventions, it is essential that policymakers understand the complex mechanisms that link context, social expectations and preferences, and how the interpretation of different types of messages affects behavior.
{"title":"Norm nudging and twisting preferences","authors":"C. Bicchieri","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.5","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Public policies often involve “norm nudging”, the use of norm information to steer individual behavior in a prosocial direction. Analysis of social norm messaging often concentrates on the outcome measure: the potential change in behavior. The cognitive and psychological processes that underlie individuals’ response to norm information, especially the inferences they draw, are usually overlooked. This knowledge gap may lead to adverse consequences, such as messages backfiring. To (factually) justify norm nudging interventions, it is essential that policymakers understand the complex mechanisms that link context, social expectations and preferences, and how the interpretation of different types of messages affects behavior.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46218684","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}
Behavioural science has made significant contributions to public policy over the last decade from tax compliance to pensions and energy use. However, behavioural insights (BI) have not yet been able to claim significant policy shifts in the area of crime, despite increasing interest and experimentation. This paper offers a critical reflection on the state of BI and crime from the perspective of those who have been at the forefront of this work since the inception of the world's first behavioural science team in government. We outline how existing theories of crime have already laid foundations for the successful application of BI but identify opportunities to build on these with tools from behavioural science. We conclude by examining how continued cross-pollination of ideas between BI and disciplines such as applied criminology points to promising directions for future research.
{"title":"Reflections on applying behavioural insights to crime: a guide for behavioural scientists and criminologists in search of policy unicorns","authors":"Matthew Davies, S. Ruda","doi":"10.1017/bpp.2023.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2023.13","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Behavioural science has made significant contributions to public policy over the last decade from tax compliance to pensions and energy use. However, behavioural insights (BI) have not yet been able to claim significant policy shifts in the area of crime, despite increasing interest and experimentation. This paper offers a critical reflection on the state of BI and crime from the perspective of those who have been at the forefront of this work since the inception of the world's first behavioural science team in government. We outline how existing theories of crime have already laid foundations for the successful application of BI but identify opportunities to build on these with tools from behavioural science. We conclude by examining how continued cross-pollination of ideas between BI and disciplines such as applied criminology points to promising directions for future research.","PeriodicalId":29777,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49488595","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}
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