Again via Nudge, the New York Times outlines Obama's Retirment Initiatives. For any students in the behavioural economics class, or people interested more generally, this is one of the clearest uses to date of the literature in behavioural economics in shaping an important public policy.
The option of allowing people to take their tax refunds in the form of government bonds simply by ticking a box is really clever and should be looked at in Ireland, though would be quantitatively less significant over here.
link here
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The tax cuts in Obama's stimulus package took account of framing effects, too; the 'economic recovery payment' to social security recipients was framed as a one-time bonus and came directly from the social security administration, not the IRS via a rebate.
Ditto the payroll tax credit. Thaler's work on mental accounting is worth reading for anyone interested and Liam linked a paper on behavioural economics & taxation policy on this blog before.
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