Read more
"My aim in the Origins book was to outline the foundations and development of the relatively new subfield of behavioural public policy.2 Given that behavioural public policy is defined as the use of behavioural economics, and behavioural science more broadly, to inform public policy design, that book necessarily included a brief summary of the development of behavioural economics, and indeed of standard rational choice theory, also.3 In that vein, broadly speaking, the book considered two principal lines of inquiry: namely, the early challenges that questioned the descriptive validity of the axioms of expected utility theory (e.g. the Allais and Ellsberg paradoxes), and the suggestion that people employ decision-making heuristics - which challenges the assumption that they maximise expected utility -"--
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Setting the scene; 2. Other voices; 3. A kingdom of ends; 4. The view from nowhere; 5. Nourishing flourishing; 6. Anyone for desert?; 7. Private matters; 8. Public matters; 9. The lives of others; 10. Summing up; Bibliography.
About the author
Adam Oliver is a behavioural economist and behavioural public policy analyst at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has published and taught widely in the areas of health economics and policy, behavioural economics and behavioural public policy. He is a founding Editor in Chief of the journals, Health Economics, Policy and Law and Behavioural Public Policy. He edited the book, also titled Behavioural Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2013), and authored The Origins of Behavioural Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Reciprocity and the Art of Behavioural Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2019). He is the Chair of the International Behavioural Public Policy Association.
Summary
The book is invaluable to all those interested in behavioural science and its application to policy. It offers a unique framework that fits within the classical liberal tradition of affording citizens autonomy over their lives, so long as they do not abuse that freedom by imposing substantive harms on others.
Foreword
An overarching liberal political economy of behavioural public policy, offering a radical departure from existing paternalistic frameworks.
