"Small miracles"-- behavioral insights to improve development policy: World Development Report 2015

Allison Demeritt and Karla Hoff

No 7197, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: One of the most fruitful advances in modern economics has been the introduction of psychological realism into the model of"economic man."The World Development Report 2015 organizes the evidence about how humans actually think and make decisions into a coherent framework useful for designing development policy. This paper elaborates on the three principles of human thinking that constitute the report's intellectual framework: Human thinking is dual process -- automatic as well as deliberative (thinking automatically); it is conditioned by social context and the salience of social identities (thinking socially); and it is shaped by mental models that are socially constructed (thinking with mental models). Behavioral insights create scope for policy interventions that produce"miracles"from the perspective of traditional economics.

Keywords: Tertiary Education; Health Monitoring&Evaluation; Educational Sciences; Knowledge for Development; Primary Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hme and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Chapter: “Small Miracles” — Behavioral Insights to Improve Development Policy: The World Development Report 2015 (2016)
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