Saturday, July 12, 2008

What does behavioural economics mean for policy?

A paper from Kooreman and Prast

http://www.netspar.nl/events/2007/april/panel/paperpp2.pdf


Abstract:
New insights from behavioral economics have profound implications for policymakers. A
key finding in behavioral economics is that people often do not behave in their best interest even if they know what their best interest is. Another insight is that people are extremely sensitive to the way choices are presented to them. These effects are particularly pronounced in the areas of
financial planning and health-related behavior. This provides scope for a new type of policy interventions: libertarian, or soft, paternalism. Soft paternalism helps individuals to make choices that are in their best interest. It does not eliminate choice options, and is an inexpensive type of policy. This paper discusses the behavioral policy options in the fields of personal savings and health, with an emphasis on Dutch institutions. We recommend a much more effective use of soft paternalism, in particular by setting smart defaults and by using unorthodox commitment mechanisms.

12 comments:

Liam Delaney said...

Also, see the following extremely detailed article from 1998 outlining the behavioural economics of law and policy

http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/236.pdf

Liam Delaney said...

ah bugger - Google " A Behavioral Approach to Law and
Economics" and its first link - ten euro to the first geary institute employee who emails me and tells me how to do links properly on this thing

Anonymous said...

If you're a moderator it should let you use full HTML so..

[URL=YOURLINK]comment on link[/URL]

replace [] with <>

Example:
[URL=www.ucd.ie/economics]Better than trinners[/url]

Liam Delaney said...

[URL=www.ucd.ie/economics]Better than trinners[/url]

Liam Delaney said...

full html should be the default option!

Anonymous said...

No, replace the [] brackets with <>

I can't because I'm not a mod

Anonymous said...

Sorry, my mistake. The code for URL links on this type of page is

[a href="http://www.ucd.ie/economics"]econ[/a]

Again, just replace all [] brackets with <> type brackets

Test:
Economics

Liam Delaney said...

econ

Liam Delaney said...

genius! - if you are a geary employee i owe you a tenner - if not, ill still give you the tenner if you can find me

Anonymous said...

Nope, I don't work at/for geary. Just finished first year as an undergrad. I'll let you keep the 10 euro, consider it a downpayment on a good grade for when I have to take Econometrics II... just kidding :)

Glad I could help. By the way, like the blog.

Liam Delaney said...

Ok - thanks for your help! I will be teaching a course in behavioural economics next year for third years - will go through a lot of this material

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