Behavioural Public Policy Blog

Erik Angner and Gustaf Arrhenius explain the context of Sweden’s response to COVID-19, seen as straying well away from the mainstream. They argue that every country faces the same uncertainties in the coronavirus pandemic. Responses are framed by local constitutional and cultural norms, and by other factors including behavioural insights. In this Sweden is no different, but its strategy is set by its experts not by politicians. … More The Swedish Exception?

An interesting aspect of the current pandemic is that authoritarian solutions, typified by complete lockdowns of citizens’ movements, seem increasingly popular. Even in England, where self-determination is given high importance and police powers are relatively limited, there seems strong support for “lockdown” policies. In unusual situations should governments put more effort into soliciting public opinion in their decisions, rather than relying upon attitudinal assumptions derived from more normal times.
… More Popular Paternalism: Has a Pandemic turned people towards authoritarianism?

Reciprocity is a fundamental driver of human behaviour. There will probably be few times in our lives when the will to act reciprocally will be more important than it is right now. It could be used in the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic … More Durian Is Not The Only Fruit: On Reciprocity and Hoarding in the Age of the Coronavirus

The World’s hopes are pinned on a #vaccine for Coronavirus, while the WHO lists #Vaccine Hesitancy as a major threat. Time for #Behavioural policy to step up? @lexhortal … More Breathing Life into Vaccination

Uni students whose education choices are driven by intrinsic motivation perform better than those driven by financial return. @L_Bunce shows how marketised education may bring new challenges for policymakers and educators. … More Learning v. Earning

Armando Meier, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business & University of Basel Faculty of Business & Economics Alois Stutzer, University of Basel, Faculty of Business & Economics Lukas Schmid, University of Lucerne, Faculty of Economics & Management   Observers of recent electoral decisions can’t help but notice that politics is emotional. Yet how and … More Mind the weather: Sad voters shy away from political reforms

How do people make moral judgments of soldier actions in war? This blog considers the different approaches in social psychology, moral psychology, philosophy and war. Given that the4 context of war is so different to peace, an interdisciplinary approach drawing on behavioural sciences can contribute to policy on moral judgments in war. … More Degrees of Wrongness: Judging combatants’ actions in war

Are green licence plates for electric cars a “nudge for good”? Daniel Read makes the case for policy makers to proceed with caution when using envy and status-seeking to achieve a goal. … More Going Green with Envy

Robert Sugden agrees and disagrees with points from Adam Oliver’s book on Reciprocity: He agrees on the importance of reciprocity in society and on resistance to state paternalism. But he disagrees with Oliver’s belief that reciprocity is undermined by markets. Sugden argues that voluntary co-operation to mutual benefit is ‘the best structure for nurturing social feelings of mankind’, whether in relation to private goods or public services. Sugden, therefore, cautions against the imposition of supply-side controls based on “paternalistic” subjective judgments of “true preferences”. … More A Win-Win: Nurturing Reciprocity in Markets

Why do people listen to some messengers and ignore others, even when they are saying exactly the same thing? In this summary of their new book, Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks argue that the trait-judgments we make about others influence how likely we are to be receptive to what a messenger has to say. … More The Messenger is the Message