While laboratory and field experiments are the major items in the toolbox of behavioral economists, household panel studies can complement them and expand their research potential. We introduce the German Socio-Economic Panel’s Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS), which offers researchers detailed panel data and the possibility to collect personalized experimental and survey data for free. We discuss what SOEP-IS can offer to behavioral economists and illustrate a set of design ideas with examples. Although we build our discussion on SOEP-IS, our purpose is to provide a guide that can be generalized to other household panel studies as well.

Loss framing and checklist formatting are two oft-cited tools for encouraging behavior change, but there is little causal evidence on their impact in field settings. We partnered with the City of Philadelphia to test the effectiveness of these tools to increase completion of the City’s wellness program. In our experiment, 5235 City employees and retirees were randomly assigned to receive one of four postcard versions (using a 2 × 2 design), whereby we varied both framing (gain or loss) and how instructions were provided (information only or information in checklist format). Our results suggest that neither loss framing nor the checklist formatting significantly influenced the likelihood that individuals would complete the wellness tasks, or how quickly they completed the tasks. We conclude that this specific form of employee behavior may be difficult to influence through the “passive” behavioral interventions we tested, and suggest that a more “active” approach may be required in such instances.

We have previously argued thatbehavioral scientists have been testing and advocating individualistic (i-frame) solutions to policy problems that have systemic (s-frame) causes and require systemic solutions. Here, we consider the implications of adopting an s-frame approach for research. We argue that an s-frame approach will involve addressing different types of questions, which will, in turn, require a different toolbox of research methods.

Traditional approaches for evaluating the impact of scientific research – mainly scholarship (i.e., publications, presentations) and grant funding – fail to capture the full extent of contributions that come from larger scientific initiatives. The Translational Science Benefits Model (TSBM) was developed to support more comprehensive evaluations of scientific endeavors, especially research designed to translate scientific discoveries into innovations in clinical or public health practice and policy-level changes. Here, we present the domains of the TSBM, including how it was expanded by researchers within the Implementation Science Centers in Cancer Control (ISC3) program supported by the National Cancer Institute. Next, we describe five studies supported by the Penn ISC3, each focused on testing implementation strategies informed by behavioral economics to reduce key practice gaps in the context of cancer care and identify how each study yields broader impacts consistent with TSBM domains. These indicators include Capacity Building, Methods Development (within the Implementation Field) and Rapid Cycle Approaches, implementing Software Technologies, and improving Health Care Delivery and Health Care Accessibility. The examples highlighted here can help guide other similar scientific initiatives to conceive and measure broader scientific impact to fully articulate the translation and effects of their work at the population level.

Recent meta-analyses suggest that certain drugs act as cognitive enhancers and can increase attentional investment and performance even for healthy adults. The current review examines the potential of behavioral economics enhancers (BEEs) for similarly improving cognitive performance and judgments. Traditionally, behavioral economics theory has adopted a skeptical approach regarding the notion of whether individuals can overcome judgment biases through variables that increase cognitive effort. We focus mostly on the effects of two BEEs: incentivization and losses. Summarizing results from different meta-analyses, we find a small but robust positive effect size for BEEs, with comparable effect sizes to those found in studies of pharmacological cognitive enhancers.

Recent work has argued for a Hayekian behavioural economics, which combines Austrian economics with behavioural economics as developed by Kahneman, Thaler, Sunstein, and others. We suggest that this hybrid is misguided because it relies on individual cognitivism. This view of cognition is incompatible with the Hayekian view of cognition which treats rationality as an emergent phenomenon of social interaction in an institutional environment. This Hayekian view, which we call epistemic institutionalism, is compatible with an alternative prominent perspective in psychology, that of the extended mind, sometimes known as 4E cognition. We demonstrate how the Hayekian perspective on individualism, the price system, and the evolution of rules can be connected to the extended mind programme, through concepts such as the coupling of the individual and their environment, cognitive off-loading, and affordances. We suggest that this alternative combination of Austrian economics and psychology provides a more fruitful way forward, especially because it foregrounds the processes of learning, error-correction, and institutional orders, rather than choice, bias, and individual rationality. To explain why Austrian economists have been receptive to behavioural economics, we distinguish epistemic institutionalism from the (radical) subjectivist approach, which shares key assumptions of individual cognitivism.

Delay discounting—the extent to which individuals show a preference for smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards—has been proposed as a transdiagnostic neurocognitive process across mental health conditions, but its examination in relation to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is comparatively recent. To assess the aggregated evidence for elevated delay discounting in relation to posttraumatic stress, we conducted a meta-analysis on existing empirical literature. Bibliographic searches identified 209 candidate articles, of which 13 articles with 14 independent effect sizes were eligible for meta-analysis, reflecting a combined sample size of N = 6897. Individual study designs included case-control (e.g. examination of differences in delay discounting between individuals with and without PTSD) and continuous association studies (e.g. relationship between posttraumatic stress symptom severity and delay discounting). In a combined analysis of all studies, the overall relationship was a small but statistically significant positive association between posttraumatic stress and delay discounting (r = .135, p < .0001). The same relationship was statistically significant for continuous association studies (r = .092, p = .027) and case-control designs (r = .179, p < .001). Evidence of publication bias was minimal. The included studies were limited in that many did not concurrently incorporate other psychiatric conditions in the analyses, leaving the specificity of the relationship to posttraumatic stress less clear. Nonetheless, these findings are broadly consistent with previous meta-analyses of delayed reward discounting in relation to other mental health conditions and provide further evidence for the transdiagnostic utility of this construct.

Behavioral economics has become a dominant set of theories in explaining economic behavior, yet such behavior remains under the limited purview of psychological, cognitive, or neural approaches. This article draws on and extends Viviana Zelizer's social meaning of money framework in conjunction with new work in ‘relational accounting’ to suggest a sociological counterpoint, focusing in particular on the social and symbolic meaning attached to individual 401(k) retirement accounts. Following a market downturn, neoclassical and behavioral economics predict various types of behavioral responses, in particular loss aversion - where investors seek to increase risk-taking rather than locking in a sure loss (a loss is more painful to bear than an equivalent gain). A sociological theory that understands the shared meaning of retirement saving would predict something different, a behavior I call durable conservatism. In this article, I show how this concept better explains observed risk behavior in Americans’ 401(k) accounts following the 2002 and 2008 bear markets in stocks, and how that response differed from the behavior documented in non-retirement brokerage accounts.

Why are take up rates incomplete or low when the relevant opportunities are unambiguously advantageous to people who are eligible for them? How can public officials promote higher take up of opportunities? All over the world, these are challenges of the first order. There are three primary barriers to take up: learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs. These costs lower the net expected benefit of opportunities, and reduce participation in otherwise advantageous programs. Fully rational agents would consider these costs in their take up decisions, and in light of behavioral biases, such costs loom especially large and may seem prohibitive. Experimental and other evidence suggest methods for reducing the barriers to take up and the effects of behavioral biases. Use of such methods has the potential to significantly increase access to a wide range of opportunities that would increase individual well-being and social welfare.