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Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL2097: Behavioural Public Policy and the Nudge Agenda

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover the following topics:

-          What is Behavioural Public Policy?

-          Bounded Rationality; The Automatic and the Reflective System

-          Nudge & Libertarian Paternalism

-          Key Insights from Behavioural Economics: Behavioural Biases and Heuristics in Decision-Making

-          Social psychological insights

-          Nudge techniques; Nudge and the wider Government Toolkit

-          Nudging Citizens, Nudging Politicians and Bureaucrats

Throughout the module we discuss a variety of policy applications as outlined below, linking these to the underlying theory from behavioural economics and social psychology, and reviewing the empirical evidence of their effects:

-          Health & Lifestyle

-          Pro-Environmental Behaviours

-          Payment of taxes

-          Savings and financial behaviour

-          Civic behaviour/ voting

In the last part of the module, we consider ethical and normative questions surrounding the use of behavioural public policy, evaluate the merits or otherwise of this approach and discuss how behavioural policy techniques can be complementary to others.

-          Ethical issues surrounding behavioural public policy

-          The Politics of Libertarian Paternalism

-          Combining Nudge with Regulation – ‘Budge’

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

How this Module is Assessed

In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.

Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.

Summative Assessment

A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.

...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.

Re-assessment

Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.

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