Behavioral Insights in Infrastructure Sectors : A Survey
In the past two decades, insights from behavioral sciences, particularly behavioral economics, have been widely applied in the design of social programs such as pensions, social security, and taxation. This paper provides a survey of the existing literature in economics on the application of behavioral insights to infrastructure sectors, focusing on water and energy. Various applications of behavioral insights in the literature are examined from the perspectives of the three main actors in the infrastructure sectors: policy makers, service providers, and consumers. Evidence is presented from the literature on how behavioral regularities, such as imperfect optimization, limited self-control, and nonstandard preferences, affect the strategies, decisions, and actions of policy makers, service providers, and consumers, often leading to suboptimal outcomes for service investment, delivery, access, and use. The paper also highlights how behavioral interventions such as anchoring, framing, nonpecuniary incentives, and altering the choice architecture can lead to improvements in performance, adoption, consumption, and other outcomes of interest in the infrastructure sectors.
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021-06
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| Subjects: | BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS, PUBLICLY-PROVIDED GOODS, WATER, ENERGY, INFRASTRUCTURE, DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AND POLICY, |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/796221624298910294/Behavioral-Insights-in-Infrastructure-Sectors-A-Survey http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35824 |
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| Summary: | In the past two decades, insights from
behavioral sciences, particularly behavioral economics, have
been widely applied in the design of social programs such as
pensions, social security, and taxation. This paper provides
a survey of the existing literature in economics on the
application of behavioral insights to infrastructure
sectors, focusing on water and energy. Various applications
of behavioral insights in the literature are examined from
the perspectives of the three main actors in the
infrastructure sectors: policy makers, service providers,
and consumers. Evidence is presented from the literature on
how behavioral regularities, such as imperfect optimization,
limited self-control, and nonstandard preferences, affect
the strategies, decisions, and actions of policy makers,
service providers, and consumers, often leading to
suboptimal outcomes for service investment, delivery,
access, and use. The paper also highlights how behavioral
interventions such as anchoring, framing, nonpecuniary
incentives, and altering the choice architecture can lead to
improvements in performance, adoption, consumption, and
other outcomes of interest in the infrastructure sectors. |
|---|