Context Matters for Nudgers, Too: A Lesson from One of the Most Diverse Countries on Earth As behavioral scientists, we know that context matters. But in India, it matters in new and sometimes surprising ways. As a country of nearly … Continue reading Nudge, whether or how?
The Limits Of Nudging: Why Can’t California Get People To Take Free Money? The Earned Income Tax Credit supplements incomes through the tax code, awarding thousands of dollars each year primarily to low-wage workers with kids. But there’s a problem: … Continue reading Psychology of scarcity
Take the Quiz: Could You Manage as a Poor American? Do you have paper mail you plan to read that has been unopened for more than a week? Yes/No. 26 percent of Americans say yes. But in some states, failing … Continue reading Mistakes of the poor
The Psychology of Poverty There seems to be the genuine belief that if you just work hard enough, dream big and go hard, you will escape poverty. If you’re poor, you just have the wrong mindset. It is quite obvious … Continue reading Being poor
Children’s Handwashing and Quality Interactions In Peru, over 90% of deaths in children under five from diarrhea could be prevented by handwashing. Low-income children receive less quality interaction in Peru, a critical behavior for childhood development. Leveraging communal norms to … Continue reading Handwashing for healthy lives
When a Disappointment Helped Lead to a Nobel Prize When Michael Kremer looked at the data for a study underway in Kenya in the 1990s, he was taken aback. Mr. Kremer, a professor at Harvard, expected that the data would … Continue reading Field experiments to study poverty
If we’re serious about changing the world, we need a better kind of economics to do it In 2017, a poll in the UK asked: “Whose opinion do you trust the most when they talk about their field of expertise?” … Continue reading The humane economics
