The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy

About this book

An interdisciplinary look at the behavioral roots of public policy from the fields leading experts In recent years remarkable progress has been made in behavioral research on a wide variety of topics from behavioral finance labor contracts philanthropy and the analysis of savings and poverty to eyewitness identification and sentencing decisions racism sexism health behaviors and voting. Research findings have often been strikingly counterintuitive with serious implications for public policymaking. In this book leading experts in psychology decision research policy analysis economics political science law medicine and philosophy explore major trends principles and general insights about human behavior in policy-relevant settings. Their work provides a deeper understanding of the many driverscognitive social perceptual motivational and emotionalthat guide behaviors in everyday settings. They give depth and insight into the methods of behavioral research and highlight how this knowledge might influence the implementation of public policy for the improvement of society. This collection examines the policy relevance of behavioral science to our social and political lives to issues ranging from health environment and nutrition to dispute resolution implicit racism and false convictions. The book illuminates the relationship between behavioral findings and economic analyses and calls attention to what policymakers might learn from this vast body of groundbreaking work. Wide-ranging investigation into peoples motivations abilities attitudes and perceptions finds that they differ in profound ways from what is typically assumed. The result is that public policy acquires even greater significance since rather than merely facilitating the conduct of human affairs policy actually shapes their trajectory. The first interdisciplinary look at behaviorally informed policymaking Leading behavioral experts across the social sciences consider important policy problems A compendium of behavioral findings and their application to relevant policy domains