Postgraduate Module Descriptor


POLM227M: Behavioural Public Policy and Administration

This module descriptor refers to the 2022/3 academic year.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Brest, P. ‘Debiasing the Policy Makers Themselves’. Chapter 29 in Shafir, E (Ed). 2012. The Behavioural Foundations of Public Policy. Princetown University Press.

Cantarelli, P., Bellé, N., and Belardinelli, P. (2018) ‘Behavioral Public HR: Experimental Evidence on Cognitive Biases and Debiasing Interventions’, Review of Public Personnel Administration, 1-26.

Grimmelikhuijsen, S., Jilke, S., Olsen, A.L. & Tummers, L. 2016. ‘Behavioral Public Administration’, Public Administration Review.

 John, P. et al. 2011.  Nudge, Nudge, Think,Think: Experimenting with Ways to Change Civic Behaviour. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

 Kahneman, D. 2013.  Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

 Ly, K. & Soman, D. 2013.  Nudging Around the World. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

Marteau, T.M., D. Ogilvie, M. Roland, M. Suhrcke and M.P. Kelly (2011), ‘Judging Nudging: Can Nudging Improve Population Health?’, The British Medical Journal 342(d228), pp. 263–265.

OECD. 2017.  Behavioural Insights and Public Policy: Lessons from Around the World.  OECD. Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264270480-en. Read online:

http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/governance/behavioural-insights-and-public-policy_9789264270480-en#.WQH1Uz-GOUk

Oliver, A. 2017.  The origins of behavioural public policy.  Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Oliver, A. 2013. Ed.  Behavioural Public Policy. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Oliver, A. 2013. “From Nudging to Budging: Using Behavioural Economics to Inform Public Sector Policy”, Journal of Social Policy, 42(4): 685-700.

Shafir, E (Ed). 2012.  The Behavioural Foundations of Public Policy. Princetown University Press.

Sunstein, C. 2016.  The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sunstein, C. 2015.  Why Nudge? The Politics of Libertarian Paternalism. Yale University Press.

Thaler, R. and C. Sunstein. 2008.  Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven, Yale University Press.

ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/