Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?

By Shlomo Benartzi, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, Cass R. Sunstein, Richard H. Thaler, Maya Shankar, Will Tucker-Ray, William J. Congdon, Steven E. Galing. Psychology Science, 2017

737 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Governments are increasingly adopting behavioral science techniques for changing individual behavior in pursuit of policy objectives. The types of “nudge” interventions that governments are now adopting alter people’s decisions without coercion or significant changes to economic incentives. We calculated ratios of impact to cost for nudge interventions and for traditional policy tools, such as tax incentives and other financial inducements, and we found that nudge interventions often compare favorably with traditional interventions. We conclude that nudging is a valuable approach that should be used more often in conjunction with traditional policies, but more calculations are needed to determine the relative effectiveness of nudging.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology, General Decision Sciences

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0ce7b89dbc9573a34c3e3cab5776ea04e0e67cd9

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Citations in the corpus

What Can Be Learned from Growth Mindset Controversies? (2020, background): “It is interesting to note that the most highly-touted “nudge” interventions (among those whose effects unfold over time) have effects that are in the same range (see Benartzi et al., 2017).”
A Review of Nudges: Definitions, Justifications, Effectiveness (2020, positive): “…Insights Team (2016), Lin et al. (2017), Cadario and Chandon (2020), and Gold et al. (2020); for nudges fostering saving for retirement, see Benartzi et al. (2017), Glazebrook et al. (2017), andCronqvist et al. (2018); for nudges promoting pro-environment conduct, see Schubert (2017),…”
The Impact of Salience on Investor Behavior: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2019, neutral): “ways to present a choice to a decision-maker, and importantly, the presentation mode has a systematic impact on choice (Johnson et al. 2012; Benartzi et al. 2017).”
Nudging for Tax Compliance: A Meta-Analysis (2019, positive): “Nudges are interventions that respect the freedom of choice and leave economic incentives intact (Benartzi et al. 2017),1 and they have been studied in many important policy areas such as education (Dizon-Ross 2019), healthcare (Wisdom et al. 2010), environment (Costa and Kahn 2013), finance…”
When and why defaults influence decisions: a meta-analysis of default effects (2019, background): “Such research would allow future studies to provide further insight into when and how defaults are more likely to exert a larger effect on decisions and in what cases policy-makers and other choice architects should rely on other tools in the toolbox (Johnson et al., 2012; Benartzi et al., 2017).”
Behavioural Insights and (Un)healthy Dietary Choices: a Review of Current Evidence (2018, background): “Even though recent evidence suggests a high cost-effectiveness of behavioural interventions in various areas (Benartzi et al. 2017), critics argue that the level of evidence in food choice is currently insufficient, particularly in terms of reducing actual obesity levels (Lusk 2014).”
Nudging out support for a carbon tax (2019, neutral): “As before, we observe no difference in support for the nudge across conditions (F(3,753) = 1.”
How to Improve Tax Compliance? Evidence from Population-Wide Experiments in Belgium (2019, background): “…on how simplifying communication can help to overcome information frictions and/or hassle costs associated with the process of filing and paying taxes (see, e.g., Slemrod, Blumenthal, and Christian 2001; Kleven and Kopczuk 2011; Hoopes, Reck, and Slemrod 2015; Dwenger et al. 2016; Benzarti 2017).”