British tax authorities recently added a sentence to the top of letters to people who hadn’t paid their tax yet, simply noting that most other people had already paid up. The extra sentence is thought to have netted an extra £160million in tax revenue paid on time.
In another “nudge”, emails or texts were sent to people to remind them to pay their car fines. Payments increased four-fold. Or six-fold if a photo of the vehicle was included in the message.
These are examples of work by Dr David Halpern’s Behavioural Insights Unit, based in the UK Prime Minister’s office at 10 Downing Street. Their job is to tweak policies to take better account of human nature, and thereby improve results. The Unit’s thinking is inspired in part by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, authors of the bestseller “Nudge – Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness”.
I think this is a fascinating topic for the OECD, given its mission to produce “Better Policies for Better Lives”. Why, ask senior OECD officials, do so many policies look good on paper but not have the expected impact? Is the OECD presenting its policy advice in the most effective way?
These are important questions. What works? Can behavioural insights help?
Recently the UK Delegation invited Dr Halpern to the OECD, where he presented his work to a packed auditorium. OECD Chief Economist Pier Carlo Padoan joined us and “challenged the OECD to integrate behavioural thinking into its policy design”.
Unsurprisingly we found there are a lot of smart people already thinking about these issues at the OECD. But work is still at an early stage and lessons need to be shared across the organisation.
Wherever you live and work, please share your ideas.
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Para aquellas familias que prefieran que sus
hijos/as tengan un acercamiento más gradual ofrecemos la segunda quincena de agosto en la que se realiza un campamento mixto, con actividades en inglés y en castellano.
y también Irlanda, campamentos de verano urbanos, campamento de verano internacional, campamento políglota, campamento intensivo de inglés, Todas y cada una de las actividades al
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Dear Nick,
pls. let me add one short remark:How can the OECD expect any kind of impact if their policy is – so far- only written on paper ?
BW et bon chnace, Ingo-Steven Wais
Dear Nick, to me there are 2 words in yr. report which are both, cause and symptom.”Human Nature”. That ‘s why I do think that well described work of Dr. David Halpern ‘s Insight Unit is the basis, the best place to start to develop new strategies of how to handle those “Tax-Sinners”.And-by the way-also without a sense in re. of the logical successions of their anti-social manners.So in my opinion you can ‘t just change the human nature.But you surely can build up a positive influence into the right direction.Another question of the OECD was , ” why do so many policies looking good on paper but don ‘t have the expexted impact ?”Well, I would repeat: It ‘s not cause they are looking good on paper -it ‘s because the suggested policy is wrong.
BW et bon chance, Ingo-Steven Wais, Stuttgart
Dear Nick, to me there are exactly 2 words in your report which are both,cause and symptom.”Human Nature”.That ‘s why I do think that the well described work of Dr. David Halpern ‘s Behavioural Insights Unit is the basis, the best place to start to develop new strategies of how to handle those “Tax-Sinners”.And-by the way-also without a sense in re. of the logical successions of their anti-social behaviour.So in my opinion you can ‘t simply change the “Human nature”-but you surely can build up a positive influence that will lead into the right direction.Another question according to the OECD was-why do so many policies look good on paper but not have the expected impact?Well, there ‘s an easy answer:It ‘s not cause they are looking good on paper-it ‘s cause the suggested policy is wrong.
BW et bon chancee, Ingo Steven Wais