http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1480-6657
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Abstract
The aim of this article is to cover three things: (1) to introduce the context behind why a report prepared by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2017 would be of such importance to researchers in various academic disciplines and public policy, (2) to present the details of a simple classification system that was applied to all 111 case studies of behavioural interventions (better known as nudges) referred to in the OECD (Citation2017a) report, and (3) to discuss what needs to be done to help advance practitioners’ pursuit of effective behavioural interventions. This article aims to highlight the importance of accurately cataloguing the types of behavioural interventions that have been trialled/implemented across the world. By adopting an agreed classification system, researchers and practitioners can benefit from knowing what can work, and where it can work, as well as what does not work, in order to be better armed when considering the use of behavioural interventions to solve social policy issues.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Alec Desimone and Nick Baigent for their insightful and provocative comments on earlier drafts of this article, which were instrumental in shaping the argumentation for this piece.
Notes
1 For instance the Irish bag tax though only €0.15 was more than six times the average consumer’s willingness to pay for a plastic bag (Convery, McDonnell, and Ferreira, Citation2007)
2 Another rationale for a sugar tax is the expectation that manufacturers will reformulate their products in order to reduce the financial impact of the tax (Briggs, 2016).
3 In actual fact, the OECD set up an online tool in 2013 based on their project titled on ‘Behavioural Economics and Environmental Policy Design’. With the aim of ‘organising behavioural studies (economic or otherwise) in a way that facilitates the search and identification of studies most relevant for a given policy questions, such as by context, policy domain and type of intervention analysed (OECD, Citation2017a)’. This of course would be highly informative and useful but for the fact that it is isn’t possible to access the database Access the Behavioural Economics and Environmental Policy database.
4 There is an annex (Annex A) to the OECD (Citation2017a) report which present a table of 100 of the 111 cases according to title, area, institution, objective, problem behaviours, insight, intervention, results and impact though the details are presented in a way that makes for an easy comparison (see http://www.magdaosman.co.uk/research-projects/4556122182).