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on Nudge and Boosting |
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Issue of 2026–05–18
three papers chosen by Marco Novarese, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Gabriele Iannotta (Politecnico di Milano); Katharina Hartinger (Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany); Tommaso Agasisti (Politecnico di Milano) |
| Abstract: | The advent of commission-free trading apps has drawn millions of young, financially inexperienced users into capital markets, raising concerns about their preparedness to navigate behavioral pitfalls embedded in platform design. We evaluate two short and scalable simulation-based financial education interventions in a three-arm randomized experiment with 704 undergraduate students at an Italian university (488 completers). In both treatments, participants trade fictitious assets in an incentivized 20-round game that simulates a trading-app environment, accompanied by introductory educational content on core investment concepts. The augmented treatment additionally embeds short in-game pop-ups addressing behavioral pitfalls relevant to app-based trading, including diversification, overtrading, the disposition effect, availability bias, and herd behavior. Measured two weeks after the intervention, both treatments significantly increase financial knowledge relative to a no-intervention control group, with effect sizes of approximately 0.25-0.30 SD for the baseline Simulation and about 0.5 SD for the pop-up-augmented version. Both treatments also improve portfolio efficiency captured by a design-based Sharpe ratio computed from declared allocations, while the augmented treatment additionally increases realized in-game portfolio efficiency and revealed risk-taking during the incentivized simulation. By contrast, stated risk attitudes remain unchanged, indicating that the intervention improves how financial knowledge is translated into portfolio decisions rather than altering underlying risk preferences. |
| Keywords: | Financial education, Financial literacy, Trading apps, Portfolio efficiency, Learning-by-doing, Behavioral nudges, Randomized controlled trial |
| JEL: | G53 G11 G41 C93 I21 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jgu:wpaper:2603 |
| By: | Bart Cockx; Johan Egebark; Greet van Hoye; Emilie Videnord; Johan Vikström |
| Abstract: | Reduced motivation among jobseekers over the unemployment spell may lead to declining job-finding rates. We report findings from a low-cost digital intervention with motivational emails aimed at enhancing and sustaining motivation and search effort among job seekers in Sweden. Using a randomized controlled trial that included 200, 720 job seekers, we evaluate both carrot messages aimed at encouraging the pursuit of personal goals and intrinsic motivation and stick messages focusing on external pressure and constraints. A large share of job seekers opened the emails, and they triggered behavioral responses. Both types of messages backfired, reducing search effort and job-finding rates. The carrot messages reduced both the number of job applications and job finding, particularly among men. One likely explanation is that these messages signal to job seekers that the Public Employment Service was less controlling than initially perceived, prompting a reduction in effort. The stick messages backfired for job seekers who, at the onset of unemployment, reported that they were motivated by an inner drive rather than by constraints. These findings underscore the challenges of motivating job seekers to actively search for jobs and suggest that low-cost digital interventions, in isolation, are inadequate and may even be counterproductive. |
| Keywords: | Job search, motivation, experiment |
| JEL: | A12 D01 D91 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26115 |
| By: | Fang, Ximeng; Innocenti, Stefania; Vogt, Sonja (Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Lausanne) |
| Abstract: | Scalable behavioural interventions often struggle to engage the cognitive and psychological mechanisms that underlie durable changes in preferences and habits. This study provides a proof of concept for an underexplored intervention format: edutainment through video games. Partnering with a large video game company, we develop a game that embeds educational content on sustainable food consumption into an entertaining storyline. In a pre-registered field experiment (N = 4, 034 UK adults), participants are randomly assigned to play either one of three treatment versions of the game or a control version without environmental content. Real-world food choice behaviour is measured through incentivised online supermarket tasks. Relative to the control group, treated participants select grocery baskets with 20% lower environmental impact immediately after gameplay, an effect that remains at 8–10% in a follow-up 2–3 weeks later. Behavioural change results from a combination of knowledge gains, short-term salience and preference change. Strikingly, effects were particularly persistent among subjects with low baseline sustainability. Further evidence suggests that the intervention was effective partly because it provided an enjoyable experience and affected a rich set of beliefs and attitudes, including personal norms, efficacy, and perceived social norms. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2026-13 |