Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL2097: Behavioural Public Policy and the Nudge Agenda

This module descriptor refers to the 2016/7 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.

Basic reading:

 Akerlof, G. 2007. “The Missing Motivation in Macroeconomics”, American Economic Review , 97: 5-36.

Ariely, D. 2008. Predictably irrational: the hidden forces that shape our decisions . London, Harper Collins.

 Galizzi, Matteo M. 2014. “What is really behavioral in behavioral health policy?  And does it work?” Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy , 36(1): 25-60.

 James, S. 2012. “The contribution of behavioral economics to tax reform in the United Kingdom”, Journal of Socio-Economics , 41: 468-475.

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

 John, P. 2013. ‘All Tools are Informational Now: How Information and Persuasion Define the Tools of Government’, Policy & Politics , 41(4): 605-20.

 Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. 1979. “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk”, Econometrica , Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 263-292.

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

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

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

 Sunstein, C. Forthcoming. ‘Do People Like Nudges?’, Administrative Law Review , Forthcoming. Draft Working Paper Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2604084

 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.