Challenge
Many people in developing nations have limited access to formal savings mechanisms, impeding their ability to save money and invest in agricultural inputs like tools and fertilizer that might help improve their crops. Among the many structural reasons for low savings rates (inaccessible banks, high transaction costs, distrust of financial institutions, lack of financial literacy), psychological barriers such as impatience or lack of self-control may also play a role. Additionally,…
Behavioural Insights Projects
Discover projects applying behavioural science to policy from around the world. Add your own projects, whether completed or still ongoing, to contribute knowledge on BI applications across different countries, policy areas, and topics of interest.
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Hospital-care-associated infections (HCAIs) represent the most frequent adverse event during care delivery, affecting hundreds of millions of patients around the world. Implementing and ensuring conformity to standard precautions, particularly best hand hygiene practices, is regarded as one of the most important and cheapest strategies for preventing HCAIs. The behavioural sciences have documented the potential of adjusting seemingly irrelevant contextual features in order to ‘nudge’ people…
The Program of Applied Research on Climate Action in Canada (PARCA Canada) combines behavioural science (BeSci) insights and methods with robust policy analysis to promote climate action. One of the main areas of focus involves the launch of a longitudinal survey that will, over time, collect data on research questions of interest to the promotion of climate action in Canada (e.g. transportation, home energy use, waste management, engagement with nature, preparedness for extreme weather,…
BI Project
Improved registration of development cooperation activities: How can an application ensure correct…
In a move aimed at improving how it registers its development cooperation activities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs developed an application: IMPACT. This was successful in enabling budget holders to report activities more correctly: activities now have shorter names and are reported in English more often than previously. However, budget holders continue to use non-standard abbreviations.
Why this experiment was conducted: reports do not always comply with appropriate standards
The Ministry…
BI Project
The impact of the energy label – and potential changes to it – on consumer understanding and on…
The study explores consumers’ understanding of the individual elements of the energy label and how the label design influences consumer choice. To this end, the study implemented two behavioural experiments to measure cognitive and behavioural responses to various label elements.
Smart energy services and demand flexibility are increasingly important topics. Levels of awareness in an Irish context are uncertain, but engagement is low. We test different ways of framing information on engagement and intention to be flexible. We record flexibility preferences by activity and flexibility mechanisms.
The Program of Applied Research on Climate Action in Canada (PARCA Canada) combines behavioural science (BeSci) insights and methods with robust policy analysis to promote climate action. One of the main areas of focus involves the launch of a longitudinal survey that will, over time, collect data on research questions of interest to the promotion of climate action in Canada (e.g. transportation, home energy use, waste management, engagement with nature, preparedness for extreme weather,…
BI Project
More Than Public Service: A Field Experiment on Job Advertisements and Diversity in the Police
There is a human capital crisis looming in the public sector as fewer and fewer people show interest in government jobs. At the same time, many public sector organizations struggle with increasing the diversity of their workforce. Although many institutional forces contribute to the challenge, part of the solution is in how government recruits. This study presents the results of a field experiment aimed at attracting more and different people to apply to a police force by varying job…
Parents within the Child Support Program can apply for a Change of Assessment (CoA) when they experience a change in their circumstances that might affect their child support payments or entitlements. This is done by lodging an application with the Department of Human Services (DHS).
The aim of the study is to examine whether providing timely and salient information about the receipt and process of a claim improves process transparency and saves client time and effort by reducing the need for…
BI Project
Behavioural prompts to increase early filing of tax returns: a population-level randomised…
In Indonesia, as in other countries, a large proportion of tax returns are filed at the last minute. In a population-wide randomised controlled trial (n = 11,157,069), we evaluated the impact of behavioural email prompts on the proportion of annual tax returns filed at least two weeks before the deadline; and overall filing rate. In two control conditions, taxpayers either received no email or an email used in prior years, emphasising regulatory information. The five treatments informed by…