Nudges are popular instruments in the toolbox of policymakers. Yet, empirical evidence suggests some of these interventions can influence decisions which were not initially targeted, raising the risk to undermine their effectiveness. To analyse such spillover effects, I develop micro-foundations...

This model of policy evaluation has been developed to identify factors that cause policy outcomes to diverge from the intended results. In this model the explanatory factors may be inherent to the conceptual and institutional framework to which policy makers adhere, or they may be ‘real...

Public choice theory (PCT) has had a powerful influence on political science and, to a lesser extent, on public administration. Based on the premise that public officials are rational maximizers of their own utility, PCT has a quite successful record of correctly predicting governmental...

An important advance in the study of reference-dependent preferences is the discipline provided by coherent accounts of reference point formation. Kőszegi and Rabin (2006) provide such discipline by positing a reference point grounded in rational expectations. We examine the predictions of...

The use of behavioural science to inform policy is one of the main developments in the social sciences over the last several decades. In this book, Adam Oliver offers an accessible introduction to the development of behavioural public policy, examining how behavioural economics might be used to...

Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Assuming rationality -- Challenging rationality -- Describing risky behaviours -- About time -- Experiencing and remembering -- Motivational crowding -- Nudges -- Shoves and budges -- Give and take -- Summing up -- Note on references -- Bibliography -- Index

The burgeoning field of behavioral economics has produced a new set of justifications for paternalism. This book challenges behavioral paternalism on multiple levels, from the abstract and conceptual to the pragmatic and applied. Behavioral paternalism relies on a needlessly restrictive...