New Report by Deloitte on “Influencing behaviors to achieve public outcomes”: “Governments employ many policy levers to provide for the safety and welfare of citizens. Through taxes, subsidies, laws, and regulations, governments help shape the options available to us and the choices that we ultimately make. But, in an era of fiscal and regulatory restraint, policymakers are quickly realizing that these traditional methods have their limitations, particularly, the associated costs.
Now, government leaders are turning to the increasingly politically acceptable discipline of behavioral economics as a cheap accompaniment or alternative to traditional policymaking. Popularized in recent years by a number of best-selling books, behavioral approaches have been used successfully in a number of private and public sector organizations to influence citizens to make better choices. Deloitte’s GovLab examines successful cases from across the globe and provides practical advice for determining when behavioral approaches can add value and help achieve a positive societal outcome, in the report ReThinking red tape: Influencing behaviors to achieve public outcomes.”