The Handbook of Behavior Change
The Handbook of Behavior Change

Author: Martin S. Hagger

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-07-15

Total Pages: 730

ISBN-13: 1108750117

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Social problems in many domains, including health, education, social relationships, and the workplace, have their origins in human behavior. The documented links between behavior and social problems have compelled governments and organizations to prioritize and mobilize efforts to develop effective, evidence-based means to promote adaptive behavior change. In recognition of this impetus, The Handbook of Behavior Change provides comprehensive coverage of contemporary theory, research, and practice on behavior change. It summarizes current evidence-based approaches to behavior change in chapters authored by leading theorists, researchers, and practitioners from multiple disciplines, including psychology, sociology, behavioral science, economics, philosophy, and implementation science. It is the go-to resource for researchers, students, practitioners, and policy makers looking for current knowledge on behavior change and guidance on how to develop effective interventions to change behavior.

Incentives and Political Economy
Incentives and Political Economy

Author: Jean-Jacques Laffont

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2000-03-30

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0198294247

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Mainstream economics has recognized only recently the necessity to incorporate political constraints into economic analysis intended for policy advisors. Incentives and Political Economy uses recent advances in contract theory to build a normative approach to constitutional design in economic environments.The first part of the book remains in the tradition of benevolent constitutional design with complete contracting. It treats politicians as informed supervisors and studies how the Constitution should control them, in particular to avoid capture by interest groups. Incentive theories for the separation of powers or systems of checks and balances are developed.The second part of the book recognises the incompleteness of the constitutional contract which leaves discretion to the politicans selected by the electoral process. Asymmetric information associates information rents with economic policies and the political game becomes a game of costly redistribution of those rents. Professor Laffont investigates the trade-offs between an inflexible constitution which leaves little discretion to politicians but sacrifices ex post efficiency and a constitutionweighted towards ex post efficiency but also giving considerable discretion to politicians to pursue private agendas.The final part of the book reconsiders the modeling of collusion given asymmetric information. It proposes a new approach to characterizing incentives constraints for group behaviour when asymmetric information is non-verifiable. This provides a methodology to characterise the optimal constitutional response to activities of interest groups and to study the design of any institution in which group behavior is important.

Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance

Author: Douglass C. North

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1990-10-26

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 9780521397346

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An analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies is developed in this analysis of economic structures.

Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education
Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2011-10-18

Total Pages: 111

ISBN-13: 0309225078

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In recent years there have been increasing efforts to use accountability systems based on large-scale tests of students as a mechanism for improving student achievement. The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a prominent example of such an effort, but it is only the continuation of a steady trend toward greater test-based accountability in education that has been going on for decades. Over time, such accountability systems included ever-stronger incentives to motivate school administrators, teachers, and students to perform better. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education reviews and synthesizes relevant research from economics, psychology, education, and related fields about how incentives work in educational accountability systems. The book helps identify circumstances in which test-based incentives may have a positive or a negative impact on student learning and offers recommendations for how to improve current test-based accountability policies. The most important directions for further research are also highlighted. For the first time, research and theory on incentives from the fields of economics, psychology, and educational measurement have all been pulled together and synthesized. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education will inform people about the motivation of educators and students and inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems. Education researchers, K-12 school administrators and teachers, as well as graduate students studying education policy and educational measurement will use this book to learn more about the motivation of educators and students. Education policy makers at all levels of government will rely on this book to inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems.

Behavioral Public Economics
Behavioral Public Economics

Author: Shinji Teraji

Publisher:

Published: 2021-09-27

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9780367362409

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Behavioral Public Economics shows how standard public economics can be improved using insights from behavioral economics. Public economics typically lists four market failures that may justify government intervention in markets --imperfect competition (or natural monopoly), externalities, public goods, and asymmetric information. Under the rational choice paradigm ('agents choose what is best for them'), public economics has examined the welfare effects of policy. Recent research in behavioral economics highlights a fifth market failure --individuals may make mistakes in pursuing their own well-being. This book calls for a rethinking of assumptions of individual behavior and provides a good foundation for public economic theory. Key Features: 1. Introduces behavioral perspectives into public economics. 2. Explains why economic incentives often undermine social preferences. 3. Reveals that social incentives matter for public policy. The book will began invaluable resource for researchers and postgraduate students in public economics, behavioral economics, and public policy.

The Moral Economy
The Moral Economy

Author: Samuel Bowles

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2016-05-28

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0300221088

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Should the idea of economic man—the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus—determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding “no.” Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may “crowd out” ethical and generous motives and thus backfire. But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends.

Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor
Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor

Author: Philip Keefer

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 0031210104

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Countries vary systematically with respect to the incentives of politicians to provide broad public goods, and to reduce poverty. Even in developing countries that are democracies, politicians often have incentives to divert resources to political rents, and to private transfers that benefit a few citizens at the expense of many. These distortions can be traced to imperfections in political markets, that are greater in some countries than in others. The authors review the theory, and evidence on the impact of incomplete information of voters, the lack of credibility of political promises, and social polarization on political incentives. They argue that the effects of these imperfections are large, but that their implications are insufficiently integrated into the design of policy reforms aimed at improving the provision of public goods, and reducing poverty.

Strings Attached
Strings Attached

Author: Ruth W. Grant

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0691151601

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The legitimate and illegitimate use of incentives in society today Incentives can be found everywhere—in schools, businesses, factories, and government—influencing people's choices about almost everything, from financial decisions and tobacco use to exercise and child rearing. So long as people have a choice, incentives seem innocuous. But Strings Attached demonstrates that when incentives are viewed as a kind of power rather than as a form of exchange, many ethical questions arise: How do incentives affect character and institutional culture? Can incentives be manipulative or exploitative, even if people are free to refuse them? What are the responsibilities of the powerful in using incentives? Ruth Grant shows that, like all other forms of power, incentives can be subject to abuse, and she identifies their legitimate and illegitimate uses. Grant offers a history of the growth of incentives in early twentieth-century America, identifies standards for judging incentives, and examines incentives in four areas—plea bargaining, recruiting medical research subjects, International Monetary Fund loan conditions, and motivating students. In every case, the analysis of incentives in terms of power yields strikingly different and more complex judgments than an analysis that views incentives as trades, in which the desired behavior is freely exchanged for the incentives offered. Challenging the role and function of incentives in a democracy, Strings Attached questions whether the penchant for constant incentivizing undermines active, autonomous citizenship. Readers of this book are sure to view the ethics of incentives in a new light.

Institutions, Incentives and Electoral Participation in Japan
Institutions, Incentives and Electoral Participation in Japan

Author: Yusaku Horiuchi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-07-05

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 1134322453

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American and European political scientists have claimed that subnational elections almost always record lower voter turnout than national elections. In Japan, however, municipal elections often record considerably higher turnout than national elections, particularly in small towns and villages. Institutions, Incentives and Electoral Participation in Japan theoretically and empirically explores this puzzling 'turnout twist' phenomenon from comparative perspectives. Based on the rational-choice approach, the book hypothesizes that relative voter turnout in subnational vs. national elections is determined by the relative magnitudes of how much is at stake ('election significance') and how much votes count ('vote significance') in these elections.

Policy and Choice
Policy and Choice

Author: William J. Congdon

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0815704984

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Argues that public finance--the study of the government's role in economics--should incorporate principles from behavior economics and other branches of psychology.