Psychology, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy
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Psychology, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy ON AMIR Yale University
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DAN ARIELY MIT ALAN COOKE University of Florida DAVID DUNNING Cornell University NICHOLAS EPLEY URI GNEEZY University of Chicago BOTOND KOSZEGI University of California, Berkeley DONALD LICHTENSTEIN University of Colorado, Boulder NINA MAZAR MIT SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN Harvard University DRAZEN PRELEC MIT ELDAR SHAFIR Princeton University JOSE SILVA University of California, Berkeley
Abstract Economics has typically been the social science of choice to inform public policy and policymakers. In the current paper we contemplate the role behavioral science can play in enlightening policymakers. In particular, we provide some examples of research that has and can be used to inform policy, reflect on the kind of behavioral science that is important for policy, and approaches for convincing policy-makers to listen to behavioral scientists. We suggest that policymakers are unlikely to invest the time translating behavioral research into its policy implications, and researchers interested in influencing public policy must therefore invest substantial effort, and direct that effort differently than in standard research practices.
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AMIR ET AL.
Keywords: public policy, psychology, behavioral economics
Imagine waking up one morning, turning on the radio and hearing on the NPR news that the president of the US has issued the following statement: “After consulting my chief psychologist, I am confident that the reframing proposed in the new well-being policy will increase happiness by 34% at almost no cost.” Although this statement is unlikely to be uttered by any publicly elected official during our lifetime, this type of statement represents our hope that psychologists and behavioral economists will one day become more central and substantive contributors to public policy. Our hope is motivated by two observations. First, the past two centuries the study of human behavior has yielded many important and counterintuitive insights. Second, despite this accumulating knowledge of human nature and behavior, these findings rarely find their way to one of their most important potential applications—public policy. The failure of psychology and behavioral science more generally to influence public policy is particularly painful and frustrating in light of the success of its sibling, economics, as the basis for policy recommendations. It is not that economics has nothing to offer policy—economics indeed provides policy-makers with vital tools. Rather, the success of economics clearly demonstrates that policy-makers are willing to look to academic fields for guidance in setting their policies. Given this general willingness to accept advice, it is unfortunate that behavioral scientists are not providing their own perspectives. One striking example of this failure involves one of the most famous experiments in social science— Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment (1971). Every undergraduate student in psychology knows of the terrifying behaviors
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