Behavioural Economics Readings

There will be an event in the ESRI on November 30th on behavioural economics and public policy, co-organised by ESRI and the UCD Geary Institute. Keynote speakers are Robert Sugden, Professor of Economics at University of East Anglia and David Halpern, head of the behavioural insights team at the Cabinet Office. Details of how to register for the keynote sessions are on the ESRI website here (though the event is fully subscribed so just a waiting list for now).  There will be a full day of talks prior to this and details of that programme are here.

My main purpose with this post is to point to some literature. People attending might be interested in some of the following links and reading:

Russell Sage Foundation reading list on behavioural economics here

Publications of the Behavioural Insights Team in the Cabinet Office are available here

The Chicago Law Review piece “Empirically Informed Regulation” by Cass Sunstein is a detailed account of the ideas and applications in this area over the last number of years.

The Brookings Institute publication “Policy and Choice: Public Finance through the lense of behavioural economics” is one of the best available introductions to this area.

New book on behavioral foundations of public policy edited by Eldar Shafir will likely be a required text in this area in the future. It covers many areas of policy and the behavioural science underpinning them.

Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein is a very influential account of the libertarian paternalism idea of how behavioural economics should be applied

4 replies on “Behavioural Economics Readings”

the Behavioral insights team might be something interesting to look at / copy for Germany. Any other suggestions ?

Hi Liam

Are you aware of anyone doing behavioral economics work with regard to youth unemployment during recessions?
I have been looking at the reactions in different countries during the financial crisis. In some northern and central european countries that have had recessions (UK Sweden and Denmark) they have not had a disproportional effect on youth unemployment whereas in Latin countries the effect on youth unemployment has ballooned compared to general unemployment increases.
Are there behavioral traits southern/latin countries could learn from northern countries to reduce long term effects of recessions?

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