The Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) is a government-funded program for all permanent visa holders and some temporary visa holders who have less than a vocational level of English. Not all people who are eligible for the AMEP participate in it. The Department of Home Affairs commissioned BETA to evaluate the effectiveness of communication in participants’ home languages on increasing participation in the AMEP.
Trial 1: We will send text messages to speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese,…
Country: Australia
Behavioural Additionality & Spillovers in the R&DTI
Background
This project aimed to understand the behavioural additionality effects of the R&DTI via a series of user interviews with companies currently engaged in R&D (including those participating and not participating in the R&DTI). Behavioural additionality goes beyond the traditional view of R&D additionality, which typically focuses on quantitative increases in inputs and outputs. Instead, behavioural additionality considers wider,…
BETA partnered with the Department of Social Services to determine the effect of behaviourally-informed activity statements on gambling behaviour in a simulated game. We tested two activity statement prototypes and found participants who saw the activity statements bet less than those who did not. Showing participants clear and easy-to-understand information about their gambling activities empowered them to make informed decisions about how much to bet. This project was conducted under Measure 7…
The Australian Government has a range of programs available to assist those experiencing drought. But despite help being available, many do not reach out. The Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA) worked with the Joint Agency Drought Taskforce to research the barriers preventing people from seeking help.
We sought to:
• understand the most effective forms of communication about available forms of assistance, and incentives to take up assistance; and
• understand the…
BI Project
Nudge vs Superbugs: a behavioural economics trial to reduce the overprescribing of antibiotics
BETA and the Department of Health ran a trial to test the impact of personalised letters from Australia's Chief Medical Officer to high-prescribing GPs prompting them to consider reducing antibiotic prescribing where appropriate and safe.
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…
Surveys give people an opportunity to be heard and provide government with vital information about the impact of its services. BETA partnered with Department of Social Services (DSS) to encourage more people to complete the Data Exchange survey.
Data Exchange is new report platform developed by DSS to enable the collection of meaningful data about service delivery outcomes from organisations receiving community grants. As part of this platform, a client survey enables clients to self-report on…
BETA partnered with AFSA on two projects to determine how to best communicate about the consequences of bankruptcy.
In the first project, over 6,500 Australians completed one of six educational tools online that explain the consequences of bankruptcy and then assessed their levels of understanding. A pop-quiz and video were most effective, improving people’s understanding by 27 percentage points above the group that saw no educational tool.
In the second project, we introduced five additional…
This study examined how people respond to a new income plan for retirement, known as a Comprehensive Income Product for Retirement (CIPR). A CIPR is a composite retirement income product which is intended to provide a balance of income, risk management (for example, longevity risk management) and flexibility to retirees. In response to a Financial System Inquiry1 recommendation, the Government has agreed to facilitate superannuation trustees pre-selecting a CIPR for their members at retirement.…