"Impressive that the Tories garbage problem has been psychologically sorted, but how would George Osborne now propose to nudge us out of a recession?"
The way behavioural economics and Nudge, in particular, is being received in the UK is fascinating to see unfold - we havent had the debate in Ireland and we should - the modern literature looks like it could be implemented to make tax and savings systems more effective, to improve outcomes for students, to reduce incentives distortions in government welfare programmes etc., But, as of yet, it hasn't even featured at all in any of the central debates (not even so much as an angry rant about it being too quantitative!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/18/conservatives.economics
The British debate is focusing a lot on a number of criticisms of the implementation of behavioural economics ideas including (1) the perceived preponderence of small student samples in the behavioural literature (2) the fact that the ideas are from the USA and all ideas from the USA must, according to some of the commentators, be viewed as flawed (3) that implementing these ideas means removing a community focus from policy (4) that these ideas are a distraction from current problems around inflation and a contracting economy (5) that the ideas place most focus on the consumer rather than examining issues like poor governance, corporate fraud and so on (6) that many of the commentators perceive behavioural economics interventions to be a form of trickery.
People should read the Thaler and Benartzi (2004) paper in the JPE on "Save More Tomorrow" and a few of the others below to make up their mind (access might be restricted by journals but other copies online).
http://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v112y2004is1ps164-s187.html (save more tomorrow)
http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v94y2004i2p419-423.html (paper on behavioural economics)
http://ideas.repec.org/p/cla/levrem/122247000000000966.html (paper on the effects of quick enrolment)
Interestingly, here's something I've just finished on this very subject. I'd love your thoughts on it. I sent it in as an opinion piece to the Irish Times, but if they say no, I might post it here. Here's the draft:
ReplyDeletehttp://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhq3n47p_568rwqnr9gd
Best,
Steve
ill send on comments offline
ReplyDeleteRE: The times article
ReplyDeleteI liked the piece, it was thought provoking, with the exception of the last paragraph. It came across as though we should have a set method of raising children, and parents cannot deviate from this. As if every child should have a homogenous upbringing.
Also, I personally would edit the last line of paragraph one from "parenting and life skills" to "parenting skills". It kind of insinuates that parents innately have no life skills (in the general sense). Just a thought...