With tens of millions of citizens receiving cash transfers from social programs each month, Latin America and Caribbean governments have long sought ways to improve payment delivery and boost financial inclusion to improve savings, access to credit, and overall welfare. One attempted solution is encouraging recipients to open bank accounts to receive digital cash transfer … [Read more...] about Can Digital Payments Boost the Impact of Social Programs?
What are the Welfare Tradeoffs When Convenience Chains Replace Neighborhood Shops?
In the bustling markets of Mexico, a subtle yet significant revolution is underway. It isn’t a political or social upheaval. It's a transformation in the retail sector. Traditional neighborhood shops, once the heart of local communities, are now competing at a considerable disadvantage with giant convenience chains like 7-Eleven and Oxxo. This revolution, fueled by the entry … [Read more...] about What are the Welfare Tradeoffs When Convenience Chains Replace Neighborhood Shops?
Improving Road Safety with Behavioral Economics
We speed and drive aggressively out of overconfidence, and we disregard commonsense safety measures from too much optimism. We may even use a mobile phone while driving, preferring the short-term convenience of using the phone over greater long-term rewards like safety. We engage, in other words, in time discounting, the tendency to assign a lower value to future rewards than … [Read more...] about Improving Road Safety with Behavioral Economics
When It Comes to Taxes, Gender Matters
Do women and men behave differently when confronted with taxes? Various studies around the world show that women are more likely than men to pay their taxes, presumably because they are more risk-averse and have greater tax morale, the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes. If that is so, authorities might want to adjust their strategies to take into account gender when trying to … [Read more...] about When It Comes to Taxes, Gender Matters
Inviting Creative Thinkers to Our Free Online Behavioral Economics Course
Behavioral economics is now firmly established as an essential tool in everything from product design and marketing to education and law enforcement. The realization that people have cognitive biases and often make decisions irrationally is not only an important psychological insight. It has also opened up a whole new area of policy innovations over the last 15 years in which … [Read more...] about Inviting Creative Thinkers to Our Free Online Behavioral Economics Course