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- 30th Dec 2013
Applying Behavioural Insights to Organ Donation
Increasing sign up rates to the Organ Donor Register is a key to reducing the number of people dying each year due to a lack of available organs for transplant. The Behavioural Insights Team has been working with NHS Blood and Transplant, Government Digital Services, the Department of Health and…
- Blog
- 30th Dec 2013
The Independent supports use of Behavioural Insights
The Independent has published an editorial supporting the use of Behavioural Insights across government. The editorial, which cites our research on tax collection as well as our new report on encouraging organ donation, argues that the use of Behavioural Insights will make government both cheaper and better. The article goes…
- Blog
- 31st Dec 2013
New Year’s Resolutions For A Happier Life
The new year is often a time for reflection, when our achievements and failings over the past twelve months are the most salient. This reflection prompts many to make resolutions, promising to do better at one or more facet of their lives in the coming year. Last year, we offered…
- Blog
- 7th Jan 2014
Interview with BIT Director
Happy New Year readers! For our first post of 2014, we'd like to highlight this interview with David Halpern, our Director, published over the weekend.
- Blog
- 31st Jan 2014
On the use of evidence-based policy
Why do we use evidence-based policy?The reasons for the use of evidence-based policy should be obvious to policymakers. Anyone in a position to make decisions should look to do so with the most robust evidence for them.In some cases robust evidence may indicate that some policies are not only ineffective,…
- Blog
- 4th Feb 2014
The Behavioural Insights Team – a social purpose company
After three and a half years in Number 10 and the Cabinet Office, today the Behavioural Insights Team is being 'spun out' of government and set up as a social purpose company. We will continue to work for the Cabinet Office, which will be our first and principal client. But…
- Blog
- 10th Feb 2014
(Pro-) social networks?
Our findings from charitable giving experiments suggest that online social networks could be a hotbed for snowballing donations. Here, users can advertise their donation activities and the quality of their chosen charities cheaply and directly to their friends. The personalisation of these messages could add weight to the fundraiser’s solicitation…
- Blog
- 11th Feb 2014
Joint incentives vs individual incentives
Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will know that we like to highlight interesting new findings that we come across in the growing behavioural science literature.This time, we have chosen a field experiment conducted in Uruguay, which tests the impact of group incentives, or…
- Blog
- 20th Mar 2014
Well-being and policy
In Berlin for release of the Gus O’Donnell report on Wellbeing and Policy, due for publication in London tomorrow. Gus, the former Cabinet Secretary to three Prime Ministers, took on the Commission both at the encouragement of the current PM (speech) but also because of Gus’s own passionate interest in…
- Blog
- 28th Mar 2014
Tim Harford on behavioural economics in public policy
Last weekend, Tim Harford published this article in the Financial Times on the use of behavioural economics in public policy.Using our recent organ donation trial as an example – where we tested eight variants of a similar message to find out which was most effective at increasing the sign-up rate…