Chris Blattman

Chris Blattman

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The behavioral approach to development policy

Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain  ways, and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do. Approaching problems in development using behavioral economics thus leads to better diagnosis, which in turn leads to better-designed solutions. This paper sketches how to use behavioral insights to design development programs and policies. It distills the key insights of behavioral economics into a simple framework about the constraints under which people make decisions. It then shows how this framework leads to a set of behavioral design principles whose use can improve the reach and effectiveness of a variety of development programs.

A new-ish CGD policy paper by Saugato Datta and Sendhil Mullainathan.

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