Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T04:42:54.964Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

WHY BEHAVIOURAL POLICY NEEDS MECHANISTIC EVIDENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2015

Till Grüne-Yanoff
Till Grüne-Yanoff*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Brinellvägen 32, 10044 Stockholm, Sweden. Email: gryne@kth.se. URL: http://people.kth.se/~gryne/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Proponents of behavioural policies seek to justify them as ‘evidence-based’. Yet they typically fail to show through which mechanisms these policies operate. This paper shows – at the hand of examples from economics and psychology – that without sufficient mechanistic evidence, one often cannot determine whether a given policy in its target environment will be effective, robust, persistent or welfare-improving. Because these properties are important for justification, policies that lack sufficient support from mechanistic evidence should not be called ‘evidence-based’.

Keywords

PolicyMechanismsNudgeEvidenceWelfare
Type
Articles
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 463 - 483
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Andrews, G. 1999. Efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency in mental health service delivery. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 33: 316–322.Google Scholar
Benartzi, S. and Lewin, R.. 2012. Save More Tomorrow: Practical Behavioral Finance Solutions to Improve 401(k) Plans. New York, NY: Penguin.Google Scholar
Berg, N. and Gigerenzer, G.. 2010. As-if behavioral economics: neoclassical economics in disguise? History of Economic Ideas 18: 133–166.Google Scholar
Beshears, J., Choi, J. J., Laibson, D. and Madrian, B. C.. 2009. The importance of default options for retirement saving outcomes: evidence from the United States. In Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment, ed. Brown, J. R., Liebman, J. B. and Wise, D. A., 167–195. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. R., Farrell, A. M. and Weisbenner, S. J.. 2012. The Downside of Defaults (No. orrc12-05). National Bureau of Economic Research. http://www.nber.org/aging/rrc/papers/orrc12-05.pdf. (Accessed 22 March 2015)Google Scholar
Cain, D. M., Loewenstein, G. and Moore, D. A.. 2011. When sunlight fails to disinfect: Understanding the perverse effects of disclosing conflicts of interest. Journal of Consumer Research 37: 836–857.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. 2009a. What is this thing called ‘efficacy’? In Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, ed. Mantzavinos, C., 185–206. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. 2009b. Evidence-based policy: what's to be done about relevance? Philosophical Studies 143: 127–136.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. 2012. Will this policy work for you? predicting effectiveness better: how philosophy helps. Philosophy of Science 79: 973–989.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. and Hardie, J.. 2012. Evidence-based Policy: A Practical Guide to Doing it Better. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, B., Gillies, D., Illari, P., Russo, F. and Williamson, J.. 2014. Mechanisms and the evidence hierarchy. Topoi 33: 339–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craver, C. F. 2006. What mechanistic models explain. Synthese 153: 355–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felsen, G. and Reiner, P. B.. 2015. What can neuroscience contribute to the debate over nudging? Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6: 469–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frederick, S., Loewenstein, G. and O'Donoghue, T.. 2002. Time discounting and time preference: a critical review. Journal of Economic Literature 40: 351–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gigerenzer, G. (2008). Why heuristics work. Perspectives on Psychological Science 3: 20–29.Google Scholar
Grüne-Yanoff, T. and Hertwig, R.. 2015. Nudge versus boost: how coherent are policy and theory? Minds and Machines. doi: 10.1007/s11023-015-9367-9.Google Scholar
Halpern, D. 2014. Nudge unit: our quiet revolution is putting evidence at heart of government. The Guardian, 4.2.2014. http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/small-business-blog/2014/feb/03/nudge-unit-quiet-revolution-evidence. (Retrieved 26 February 2014).Google Scholar
Illari, P. M. 2011. Mechanistic evidence: disambiguating the Russo–Williamson thesis. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25: 139–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Illari, P. M. and Williamson, J.. 2012. What is a mechanism? Thinking about mechanisms across the sciences. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2: 119–135.Google Scholar
Johnson, E. and Goldstein, D.. 2003. Do defaults save lives? Science 302: 1338–1339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levitt, S. D. and List, J. A.. 2009. Field experiments in economics: the past, the present, and the future. European Economic Review 53: 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewenstein, G. 1996. Out of control: visceral influences on behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 65: 272–292.Google Scholar
McKenzie, C. R., Liersch, M. J. and Finkelstein, S. R.. 2006. Recommendations implicit in policy defaults. Psychological Science 17: 414–420.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Park, C. W., Jun, S. Y. and MacInnis, D. J.. 2000. Choosing what I want versus rejecting what I do not want: an application of decision framing to product option choice decisions. Journal of Marketing Research 37: 187–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raz, J. 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sah, S., Loewenstein, G. and Cain, D. M.. 2013. The burden of disclosure: increased compliance with distrusted advice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 104: 289–304.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sozou, P. D. 1998. On hyperbolic discounting and uncertain hazard rates. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 265: 2015–2020.Google Scholar
Steel, D. 2008. Across the Boundaries: Extrapolation in Biology and Social Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Strickland, S. 2014. Does it work to pay people to live healthier lives? British Medical Journal 348: 2458–2459.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. and Thaler, R. H.. 2003. Libertarian paternalism is not an oxymoron. University of Chicago Law Review 70: 1159–1202.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. H. and Benartzi, S.. 2004. Save more tomorrow: using behavioral economics to increase employee savings. Journal of Political Economy 112: 164–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H. and Benartzi, S.. 2013. Behavioral economics and the retirement savings crisis. Science 339: 1152–1153.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. H. and Sunstein, C. R.. 2008. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth And Happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D.. 1991. Loss aversion in riskless choice: a reference-dependent model. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106: 1039–1061.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar