Uwe Dulleck is a Professor of Economics and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business, Government and Law at University of Canberra. Prior to joining UC, Uwe was a Professor in Applied Economics at QUT Business School, Professor of Economics at the University of Linz, Austria and an Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna. Uwe’s research and education expertise spans behavioral economics, economic experiments using biofeedback data, expert services and credence goods, and information economics. His work in these fields is widely published and includes the American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Literature, Economic Journal, Journal of Public Economics, International Journal of Industrial Organization, and the Scandinavian Journal of Economics. His research has been discussed in the Economic Focus of The Economist, Sydney Morning Herald and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (the Sunday edition of Germany’s leading quality newspaper), among others.
What if you could help people make good life decisions through a little ‘nudge’? As policymakers, encouraging people to make the right choices about their health, wealth and overall well-being can be challenging. In this course, participants will learn about the cognitive biases we all bring to decisions and how they can use ‘nudge’ theory in policy design to make better choices, as well as behavioural economics and its approach to policy evaluation.
This course will explain why the theory behind ‘Nudging’ - behavioural economics - provides a new way to look at public policy questions. It will also explain how the approach is and has been used in the public service and what opportunities there are for participants to use them in policy-making and evaluation.
We also examine the behavioural economics approach to policy evaluation. Which methods work best in a policy environment? What are the differences between randomised controlled trials and natural experiments? How to use existing administrative data to evaluate policy?
Course overview
Topics include:
- Cognitive biases and behavioural economics: What has changed for public policy design.
- Your challenge: Is behavioural economics the right tool? How to design and evaluate an intervention.
- Methods of behavioural economics: the experimental approach.
- Implications for public policy: the rise of experimental government and the risks and limitations of behavioural economics.
Learning outcomes:
- Understanding of how Behavioural Economics can help in policy development and policy evaluation - where is it different (new), what can it achieve.
- Introduction to the EAST approach - development of basic knowledge to develop a Behavioural Economic intervention for the workplace.
- Basic understanding of the limitations of the approach.
Who should attend?
- APS, Not-for-profit and Private sector
- No prerequisites required. General experience with public policy is useful, as would be a formal education in economics, law or psychology, but experience in the sector and a policy issue that participants want to tackle are all that is necessary.
Testimonials
I have several upcoming pieces of work that could be considered 'wicked' policy problems and this course has helped give me a new lens in finding solutions. Nudge policies are often low-cost which is highly critical for policy initiatives in the current fiscal environment (I used this rationale to seek Branch funding to participate in the course).
Presenter
