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Behavioral Economics Policy Impact and Future Directions (2023) / Chapter Skim
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13 Implementing Behavioral Economics Approaches
Pages 201-212

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From page 201...
... . A study of the adoption of the results of randomized controlled trials in behavioral economics research, funded by the U.S.
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From page 202...
... This chapter examines the circumstances that affect whether research intended for policy applications succeeds, focusing on the goals of researchers and policy makers, administrative issues, the accessibility of research, and the challenges of translating the relevant findings into a new context and putting them to work at the necessary scale. CONNECTING RESEARCH AND PRACTICE Much of what is known about behavioral economics has been discovered by academic researchers using randomized controlled trials (e.g., Tversky & Kahneman, 1985)
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From page 203...
... Although this issue is acknowledged by traditional economists, behavioral economics research shows that people's responses to the presence or removal of administrative burdens significantly exceed what would be predicted by traditional economics. Navigating complicated paperwork and government websites, as well as challenges in communicating with government agencies, are examples of administrative burden.
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From page 204...
... This necessary control leads to conflicting goals for the intervention. Academic researchers seek generalizable knowledge, and therefore they place the highest priority on a strong causal research design.
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From page 205...
... , a policy maker's ability to understand what evidence to implement is severely limited. Policy makers vary in the training and experience they have had in understanding and applying academic research and in the value and importance they believe it has for their own policy work.
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From page 206...
... , which not only funds education research but also collects and disseminates policy-relevant evidence related to the relationship between family income and educational achievement in ways that are easy to digest.5 The EEF categorizes different types of educational interventions on the basis of their cost, the likely effect size, and how rigorous the evidence base is. With respect to publication bias, improving research transparency would be a substantial benefit (see Chapter 12)
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From page 207...
... , a part of the federal General Services Administration, supports and conducts randomized controlled trials of research-based ideas that are brought to the public sector. It is worth noting that, as providers of technical assistance to federal agencies, the OES staff focus on making progress with policy objectives rather than on seeking opportunities to test theories or behavioral insights.
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From page 208...
... One study of 73 randomized controlled trials conducted in U.S. cities showed that only one-third of the tested behavioral treatments were ultimately adopted (DellaVigna, Kim, & Linos, 2022)
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From page 209...
... improved training in behavioral economics to help prepare policy makers and staff to collaborate in translating research ideas for real-world policy development and design. A new subfield of public administration scholarship dedicated to using evidence from behavioral economics has also started to gain steam, but in the committee's view, behavioral economics or another field that directly addresses behavior should be a core element of the curriculum for students preparing for careers in public administration (e.g., Grimmelikhuijsen et al., 2017)
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From page 210...
... . Cognitive biases in performance appraisal: Experimental evidence on anchoring and halo effects with public sector managers and employees.
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From page 211...
... Commis sioned paper prepared for the Committee on Future Directions for Applying Behavioral Economics to Policy, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. https:// nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/26874/NASEM_Commissioned_Report_Linos.pdf List, J
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From page 212...
... . Getting evidence to travel inside public systems: What organisational brokering capacities exist for evidence based policy?
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Key Terms

  • public sector
  • randomized controlled
  • controlled trials
  • policy objectives
  • economics research

  • behavioural public
  • public administrator
  • behavioral insights
  • translating research
  • academic researchers

  • effect sizes
  • policy context
  • research transparency
  • public sphere
  • economics ideas

  • public management
  • selection bias
  • broad scale
  • real world
  • cognitive biases

  • site selection
  • consulting organizations
  • administration review
  • organ donation
  • intermediary institutions

  • translating behavioral
  • tested behavioral
  • policy objective
  • research design
  • behavioral treatments


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