ECON 437: Behavioral Public Policy

Course Description

In this course you will learn to apply the insights from behavioral economics and psychology to public policy design. The goal is to make it easy and natural for ordinary people to make sensible decisions through smart choice architecture, including nudges, defaults, simplification, disclosure, etc. while preserving complete freedom of choice. In this course we consider several public policies that are informed by behavioral science research, including retirement savings, household borrowing, health care, energy & fuel use, choice of nutrition, and environmental protection. (AY).