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on Nudge and Boosting |
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Issue of 2025–03–03
three papers chosen by Marco Novarese, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Capitán, Tabaré (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences); Thunstrom, Linda; van 't Veld, Klaas; Nordström, Jonas; Shogren, Jason F. |
| Abstract: | Calorie labeling is a popular policy to address the obesity epidemic, but it has had little empirical success. Under the premise that willful avoidance of information plays a role in this result, we propose a novel approach—pre-nudges—to make consumers more receptive to calorie information. Unlike nudges, which are used to directly influence a choice, pre-nudges are used to directly influence how consumers react to the nudge itself (the calorie label). In line with predictions from our theoretical analysis, we test two pre-nudges in the context of menu labeling: one aims to increase self-efficacy, and the other one highlights the long-term health risks of overeating. In a large-scale laboratory experiment, we find that both pre-nudges reduce calorie information avoidance. Overall, our paper suggests a possible role for pre-nudges in addressing the obesity epidemic—one of the largest public health issues globally—and illustrates the potential usefulness of pre-nudges more generally |
| Date: | 2025–02–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vy6af_v2 |
| By: | Baquie, Sandra; Behrer, Arnold Patrick; Du, Xinming; Fuchs Tarlovsky, Alan; Nozaki, Natsuko Kiso |
| Abstract: | Middle-income countries host the majority of the world’s population exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution, and the majority of this population lives in urban environments. This study investigates the impact of information provision on household behavior in connection with indoor and outdoor air pollution in a middle-income country’s major urban center — Tbilisi, Georgia. The study implemented a randomized controlled trial to assess whether providing households with different levels of pollution information changes their knowledge of air pollution and avoidance behavior with respect to air pollution, and improves their health outcomes. The study evaluates three treatments: a pamphlet with general information on pollution, the pamphlet combined with daily text messages about local outdoor pollution, and the pamphlet with messages about both indoor and outdoor pollution levels, supplemented with an indoor air pollution monitor. The findings show that while the pamphlet alone did not lead to behavioral change, daily text messages significantly enhanced knowledge about pollution, led to increased avoidance behaviors, and improved health outcomes. The study also examined infiltration rates throughout the city and document three facts: indoor air pollution levels are generally higher than outdoor ones, infiltration rates are high on average, and their variation is driven primarily by behaviors. |
| Date: | 2024–07–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10852 |
| By: | Petr Krautwurm; Philipp C. Wichardt; Philipp Christoph Wichardt |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a conceptual model of decision-making tying specific preferences to broader individual goals. In particular, the model considers two hierarchically ordered types of goals: Terminal goals, which represent fundamental objectives (e.g., health, social connection, etc.), and instrumental goals, which serve as complexity-reducing intermediate steps towards achieving terminal goals (e.g., healthy eating, meeting people, etc.) and which are used to derive eventual preferences (e.g., salad instead of cake, sports club instead of reading, etc.). Notably, originating from the simplification of a complex optimization problem, the hierarchical goal structure allows for contextual misalignments between different instrumental goals (directed towards different terminal goals). As a consequence, in some contexts, it may lead agents to make suboptimal decisions – as evaluated from an outside perspective. Thus, applied to the discussion about paternalism and nudging, the model is compatible with arguments in favor of external interventions as it assumes agents to be boundedly rational, which can be addressed, instead of having generally inconsistent preferences, which are hard to rank without further assumptions on the agency of decision makers. In that sense, the model provides methodological justification for (some aspects of) paternalistic interventions. |
| Keywords: | preferences, goals, paternalism, behavioural inconsistencies |
| JEL: | D01 D11 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11672 |