Behavioural Insights Projects

There is extensive evidence that shows that poor nutrition is associated with a set of non-communicable diseases, which today constitute the main cause of death. Currently in Argentina, excess weight affects all age groups, with a prevalence of 66.1% in the adult population, 13.6% in children under 5 years of age, and 41.1% in the 5 to 17 age group. These figures are accompanied by inadequate eating habits, identifying wide food and nutritional gaps, due to deficit or excess, between current and…

Institution: Other

Team: Behavioral Sciences and Public Policies Unit

Behaviorally informed messages have had demonstrated success in increasing tax compliance in multiple regional settings. In Indonesia, which has the largest economy in Southeast Asia, a trial from the Directorate General of Taxes (DGT) and World Bank teams looked at whether behaviorally informed messages and materials can impact tax compliance and payment rates among small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The results showed, to get delinquent firms to pay their taxes, information is not enough -…

Institution: World Bank

Team: eMBeD, Mind Behaviour and Development team

How does the presence of consumer protection affect decisions at retirement? Oxera undertook a behavioural experiment for the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) to understand the role of FSCS protection—in both how consumers select their retirement income products, and whether they choose to obtain financial advice. This revealed how people behave in a realistic environment, providing insight into actual consumer behaviour and the importance of the FSCS in their decision-making.

Institution: Oxera Consulting

While potential voters may register and intend to vote, many registered voters ultimately do not participate in elections. In addition, previous studies have not addressed how the impact of the text messages may vary among causal voters compared to habitual voters. Casual voters are defined as those who had previously only voted in the presidential election or major elections. Habitual voters are defined as those who have a higher propensity to vote (in this case, those who voted in each of the…

Institution: Harvard Kennedy School

Team: Behavioural Insights Group

BETA is working with the Department of Social Services to evaluate the effectiveness of various behaviourally informed approaches on increasing workplace giving.

Institution: Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC)

Team: Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA)

Canada Carbon Rebate (CCR; formerly known as Climate Action Incentive Payment) is a tax-free, quarterly payment paid to Canadians by the federal government in eligible provinces to offset the costs of federal pollution pricing. According to recent results from the Program of Applied Research on Climate Action (PARCA), eligible Canadians have low awareness of CCR and think that carbon price costs them more than they receive in CCR payment. In fact, support for carbon pricing has been declining…

Institution: Impact and Innovation Hub (IIU)- Impact Canada

Team: Impact and Innovation Unit (IIU)

In the spring of 2021, as COVID-19 vaccines became accessible to the US's general public, ideas42 and the Boston Transportation Department launched the FreeRide pilot program to encourage commuters to use transit (subway and bus) and bike share as they commute to work. The FreeRide program was designed to accomplish three main goals: • Support small businesses and employees who have endured economic hardship during the pandemic. • Shift employees away from single-occupancy vehicle use,…

Institution: Ideas42

Team: Ideas42

Tax amnesties, a limited-time opportunity for a specified group of taxpayers to pay a defined amount of tax liabilities, are broadly used across countries because they generate short-term revenue gains. However, evidence suggest that tax amnesties fail to have long-term effects, and in some cases, they generate negative effects on compliance. With the goal of evaluating the impact of tax amnesties, this experiment relies on the behavioral principle of limited attention and redesigns the…

Institution: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)

Team: IDB Behavioral Economics Group

The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other social and global political crises and incidents have increased the need to understand the mental resilience, preparedness, agency and sense of community of Finns in various crises and disruptions. This memorandum presents information related to these topics collected via the Citizens’ Pulse survey and citizen interviews commissioned by the Prime Minister’s Office in March and April 2022.

Institution: Prime Minister's Office - Finland

Team: Finnish Behavioural Policy Unit

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…

Institution: Other