Behavioral Economics: Policy Impact and Future Directions

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: “Behavioral economics – a field based in collaborations among economists and psychologists – focuses on integrating a nuanced understanding of behavior into models of decision-making. Since the mid-20th century, this growing field has produced research in numerous domains and has influenced policymaking, research, and marketing. However, little has been done to assess these contributions and review evidence of their use in the policy arena.

Behavioral Economics: Policy Impact and Future Directions examines the evidence for behavioral economics and its application in six public policy domains: health, retirement benefits, climate change, social safety net benefits, climate change, education, and criminal justice. The report concludes that the principles of behavioral economics are indispensable for the design of policy and recommends integrating behavioral specialists into policy development within government units. In addition, the report calls for strengthening research methodology and identifies research priorities for building on the accomplishments of the field to date…(More)”.

Nothing Succeeds Like Failure

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book review by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn: “Whether in cataclysmic losses, trials and tribulations, or just everyday disappointments, life offers opportunities for it to fall short and for us to fall short. Isn’t it bad enough that we fail so often, and fall so hard, with such devastating consequences? When it comes to failure of whatever stripe, can’t we just follow in the footsteps of the stoic Captain Call and “ride off from it”?

The philosopher Costică Brădățan, who is also Los Angeles Review of Books religion and comparative studies editor, answers with an unequivocal no. Instead, he asks us to hold our horses and embrace failures of all kinds, from mere shortcomings to death. And in In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility, he devotes his considerable powers of observation to the distinct potential of the acceptance of failure to liberate.

The book begins with a moment of panic in an imagined scenario in which a plane engine has caught fire and passengers face the possibility of their imminent demise. In this case, all are fine after a safe landing, but such scares, according to Brădățan, make us realize that our life is just a brief moment between “two instantiations of nothingness”: “Nothing first—dense, impenetrable nothingness. Then a flickering. Then nothing again, endlessly.” His premise is that the reality of death and the individual human’s smallness in relation to space and time—“We are next to nothing, in fact”—lies behind most of our endeavors, from religion to art, which “seek to make this unbearable fact a little more bearable.” Yet many such endeavors only obscure the fundamental reality of things. Instead, Brădățan calls for an “eyes-wide-open approach” that can remove us from our immediate surroundings and allow for the contemplation needed to transform this reality. Far from being an occasional exception, failure is an inherent part of human life. He suggests that direct confrontation with failures large and small can provide a “failure-based therapy” to help us handle this fact…(More)”.

How well do the UK government’s ‘areas of research interest’ work as boundary objects to facilitate the use of research in policymaking?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Annette Boaz and Kathryn Oliver: “Articulating the research priorities of government is one mechanism for promoting the production of relevant research to inform policy. This study focuses on the Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) produced and published by government departments in the UK. Through a qualitative study consisting of interviews with 25 researchers, civil servants, intermediaries and research funders, the authors explored the role of ARIs. Using the concept of boundary objects, the paper considers the ways in which ARIs are used and how they are supported by boundary practices and boundary workers, including through engagement opportunities. The paper addresses the following questions: What boundaries do ARIs cross, intended and otherwise? What characteristics of ARIs enable or hinder this boundary-crossing? and What resources, skills, work or conditions are required for this boundary-crossing to work well? We see the ARIs being used as a boundary object across multiple boundaries, with implications for the ways in which the ARIs are crafted and shared. In the application of ARIs in the UK policy context, we see a constant interplay between boundary objects, practices and people all operating within the confines of existing systems and processes. For example, understanding what was meant by a particular ARI sometimes involved ‘decoding’ work as part of the academic-policy engagement process. While ARIs have an important role to play they are no magic bullet. Nor do they tell the whole story of governmental research interests. Optimizing the use of research in policy making requires the galvanisation of a range of mechanisms, including ARIs…(More)”.

A Genealogy of Open

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Betsy Yoon: “The term open has become a familiar part of library and education practice and discourse, with open source software being a common referent. However, the conditions surrounding the emergence of the open source movement are not well understood within librarianship. After identifying capitalism and neoliberalism as structures that shape library and open practice, this article contextualizes the term open by delineating the discursive struggle within the free software movement that led to the emergence of the open source movement. An understanding of the genealogy of open can lend clarity to many of the contradictions that have been grappled with in the literature, such as what open means, whether it supports social justice aims, and its relation to neoliberal and capitalist structures. The article concludes by inquiring into how librarianship and open can reframe practices that are typically oriented toward mitigation and survival to encompass an orientation toward life and flourishing…(More)”.

Networks: An Economics Approach

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Sanjeev Goyal: “Networks are everywhere: the infrastructure that brings water into our homes, the social networks made up of our friends and families, the supply chains connecting cities, people, and goods. These interconnections contain economic trade-offs: for example, should an airline operate direct flights between cities or route all its flights through a hub? Viewing networks through an economics lens, this textbook considers the costs and benefits that govern their formation and functioning.

Networks are central to an understanding of the production, consumption, and information that lie at the heart of economic activity. Sanjeev Goyal provides advanced undergraduate and graduate students with an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the economics research on networks of the past twenty-five years. Each chapter introduces a theoretical model illustrated with the help of case studies and formal proofs. After introducing the theoretical concepts, Goyal examines economic networks, including infrastructure, security, market power, and financial networks. He then covers social networks, with chapters on coordinating activity, communication and learning, information networks, epidemics, and impersonal markets. Finally, Goyal locates social and economic networks in a broader context covering networked markets, economic development, trust, and group networks in their relation to markets and the state…(More)”.

A Guide to Adaptive Government: Preparing for Disruption

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Nicholas D. Evans: “With disruption now the norm rather than the exception, governments need to rethink business as usual and prepare for business as disrupted.

Government executives and managers should plan for continuous disruption and for how their agencies and departments will operate under continuous turbulence and change. In 2022 alone, the world witnessed war in Ukraine, the continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and natural disasters such as Hurricane Ian—not to mention energy scarcity, supply chain shortages, the start of a global recession, record highs for inflation, and rising interest rates.

Traditional business continuity and disaster recovery playbooks and many other such earlier approaches—born when disruption was the exception—are no longer sufficient. Rather than operating “business as usual,” government agencies and departments now must plan and operate for “business as disrupted.” One other major pivot point: when these disruptions happen, such as COVID, they bring an opportunity to drive a long awaited or postponed transformation. It is about leveraging that opportunity for change and not simply returning to the status quo The impact to supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery illustrates this insight…

Evans recognizes the importance of pursuing agile principles as foundational in realizing the vision of adaptive government described in this report. Agile government principles serve as a powerful foundation for building “intrinsic agility,” since they encourage key cultural, behavioral, and growth mindset approaches to embed agility and adaptability into organizational norms and processes. Many of the insights, guidance, and recommendations offered in this report complement work pursued by the Agile Government Center (AGC), led by the National Academy of Public Administration in collaboration with our Center, and spearheaded by NAPA Fellow and Center Executive Fellow Ed DeSeve.

This report illustrates the strategic significance of adaptability to government organizations today. The author offers new strategies, techniques, and tools to accelerate digital transformation, and better position government agencies to respond to the next wave of both opportunities and disruptive threats—similar to what our Center, NAPA, and partner organizations refer to as “future shocks.” Adaptability as a core competency can support both innovation and risk management, helping governments to optimize for ever-changing mission needs and ambient conditions Adaptability represents a powerful enabler for modern government and enterprise organizations.

We hope that this report helps government leaders, academic experts, and other stakeholders to infuse adaptive thinking throughout the public sector, leading to more effective operations, better outcomes, and improved performance in a world where the only constant seems to be the inevitability of change and disruption…(More)”.

Innovating Democracy? The Means and Ends of Citizen Participation in Latin America

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Thamy Pogrebinschi: “Since democratization, Latin America has experienced a surge in new forms of citizen participation. Yet there is still little comparative knowledge on these so-called democratic innovations. This Element seeks to fill this gap. Drawing on a new dataset with 3,744 cases from 18 countries between 1990 and 2020, it presents the first large-N cross-country study of democratic innovations to date. It also introduces a typology of twenty kinds of democratic innovations, which are based on four means of participation, namely deliberation, citizen representation, digital engagement, and direct voting. Adopting a pragmatist, problem-driven approach, this Element claims that democratic innovations seek to enhance democracy by addressing public problems through combinations of those four means of participation in pursuit of one or more of five ends of innovations, namely accountability, responsiveness, rule of law, social equality, and political inclusion…(More)”.

Soft power, hard choices: Science diplomacy and the race for solutions

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stephan Kuster and Marga Gual Soler: “…Global challenges demand that we build consensus for action. But reaching agreement on how – and even if – science and technology should be applied, for the aggregate benefit of all, is complex, and increasingly so.

Science and technology are tightly intertwined with fast-changing economic, geopolitical, and ideological agendas. That pace of change complicates, and sometimes deviates, the discussions and decisions that could unlock the positive global impact of scientific advances.

Therefore, anticipation is key. Understanding the societal, economic, and geopolitical consequences of emerging and possible new technologies before they are deployed is critical. Just recently, for example, artificial intelligence (AI) labs have been urged by a large number of researchers and leading industry figures to pause the training of powerful AI systems, given the inherent risks to society and humanity’s existence.

Indeed, the rapid pace of scientific development calls for more effective global governance when it comes to emerging technology. That in turn requires better anticipatory tools and new mechanisms to embed the science community as key stakeholder and influencer in this work.

The Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) was created with those goals in mind. GESDA identifies the most significant science breakthroughs in the next five, 10, and 25 years. It assesses those advances with the potential to most profoundly to impact people, society, and the planet. It then brings together scientific and policy leaders from around the world to devise the diplomatic envelopes and approaches needed to embrace these advances, while minimizing downsides risks of unintended consequences…(More)”.

Think Bigger: How to Innovate

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Sheena Iyengar: “…answers a timeless question with enormous implications for problems of all kinds across the world: “How can I get my best ideas?”

Iyengar provides essential tools to spark creative thinking and help us make our most meaningful choices. She draws from recent advances in neuro- and cognitive sciences to give readers a set of practical steps for coming up with powerful new ideas. Think Bigger offers an innovative evidence-backed method for generating big ideas that Iyengar and her team of researchers developed and refined over the last decade.

For anyone looking to innovate, the black box of creativity is a mystery no longer. Think Bigger upends the myth that big ideas are reserved for a select few. By using this method as a guide to creative thinking, anybody can produce revolutionary ideas…(More)”.

Modernizing philanthropy for the 21st century

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Stefaan G. Verhulst, Lisa T. Moretti, Hannah Chafetz and Alex Fischer: “…How can philanthropies move in a more deliberate yet responsible manner toward using data to advance their goals? The purpose of this article is to propose an overview of existing and potential qualitative and quantitative data innovations within the philanthropic sector. In what follows, we examine four areas where there is a need for innovation in how philanthropy works, and eight pathways for the responsible use of data innovations to address existing shortcomings.

Four areas for innovation

In order to identify potential data-led solutions, we need to begin by understanding current shortcomings. Through our research, we identified four areas within philanthropy that are ripe for data-led innovation:

  • First, there is a need for innovation in the identification of shared questions and overlapping priorities among communities, public service, and philanthropy. The philanthropic sector is well placed to enable a new combination of approaches, products, and processes while still enabling communities to prioritize the issues that matter most.
  • Second, there is a need to improve coordination and transparency across the sector. Even when shared priorities are identified, there often remains a large gap between the imperatives of building common agendas and the ability to act on those agendas in a coordinated and strategic way. New ways to collect and generate cross-sector shared intelligence are needed to better design funding strategies and make difficult trade-off choices.
  • Third, reliance on fixed-project-based funding often means that philanthropists must wait for impact reports to assess results. There is a need to enable iteration and adaptive experimentation to help foster a culture of greater flexibility, agility, learning, and continuous improvement.
  • Lastly, innovations for impact assessments and accountability could help philanthropies better understand how their funding and support have impacted the populations they intend to serve.

Needless to say, data alone cannot address all of these shortcomings. For true innovation, qualitative and quantitative data must be combined with a much wider range of human, institutional, and cultural change. Nonetheless, our research indicates that when used responsibly, data-driven methods and tools do offer pathways for success. We examine some of those pathways in the next section.

Eight pathways for data-driven innovations in philanthropy

The sources of data today available to philanthropic organizations are multifarious, enabled by advancements in digital technologies such as low-cost sensors, mobile devices, apps, wearables, and the increasing number of objects connected to the Internet of Things. The ways in which this data can be deployed are similarly varied. In the below, we examine eight pathways in particular for data-led innovation…(More)”.