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AbstractBehavioural economics incorporates ideas from psychology, sociology and neuroscience to better predict how individuals make long‐term decisions. Often the ideas adopted include present or inattention bias, both potentially leading to suboptimal outcomes. But these models also point to opportunities for effective, low‐cost government policies that can have meaningful positive effects on people's long‐term well‐being. The last decade has been marked by a growing interest from governments the world over in using behavioural economics to inform policy decisions. This is true of Canada as well. In this paper we discuss the increasingly important role behavioural economics plays in Canadian public policy. We first contextualize government policies that have incorporated insights from behavioural economics by outlining a collection of models of intertemporal choice. We then present examples of public policy initiatives that are based upon findings in the field, placing particular emphasis on Canadian initiatives. We also document future opportunities, challenges and limitations.

AbstractBehavioural economics offers a critique of modern neoclassical economics by providing empirical evidence that the model of rational choice does not accurately describe human decision‐making processes. The existence of cognitive biases, what we might term 'agent failure', becomes reason to doubt the efficacy of unhampered markets, and is seen by some as a sufficient condition for government intervention. This article offers a critique of this argument from an Austrian and public choice theory comparative institutions perspective. Agent failure arguments are analogous to market failure arguments of the mid‐twentieth century and the same kinds of responses made against the latter are applied to the former. Behavioural economics arguments for intervention ignore the cognitive biases of political actors, neglect the comparative perspective that results from such biases, and do not examine the ways in which markets are superior to politics in providing the information and incentives actors need to become aware of their errors and correct them. The existence of imperfectly rational agents, like the existence of imperfect markets, is therefore not a sufficient condition for government intervention into the market.

Neoclassical economics relies on the assumption that decision makers make rational, coherent and efficient choices, and this has also been the basis for transport planning and policy making in the recent decades. Lately, however, it is becoming more and more evident that individuals, and thus also the participants of transport processes, do not always act rationally. Moreover, the logic behind this irrationality seems to be consistent and the relevant behavioural patterns predicting the given activities may well be revealed. The theoretical background of this research field is called behavioural economics and is gaining an increasing impetus on governmental and policy levels, especially in the USA and the UK. Thus, it is reasonable to utilize it in the fields of studying and influencing transport and mobility in daily and work life, and to apply its merits as a means to reduce the adverse effects of climate change induced by transport operations.

This comprehensive Handbook addresses a wide variety of methodological approaches adopted and developed by behavioural economists, exploring the implications of such innovations for analysis and policy. Presenting analytical narratives from renowned economists and economic psychologists, the Handbook applies a broad array of methodological perspectives to behavioural economics. These span from bounded rationality, asymmetric information, and heuristics and biases to fast and frugal heuristics, rational agents and smart decision-makers, and capabilities improvements and institutional design. Chapters further explore diverse areas such as public policy, micro and macroeconomics, labour economics, the firm, decision-making, preference formation, punishment, love, altruism, trust, the environment, money and finance, health, and sports. Providing a pluralistic approach to behavioural economics, the Handbook ultimately introduces readers to an array of possible methodologies that can be adopted to address topical economic issues, as well as facilitating an enriched and nuanced understanding of human behaviour in an economic context. Comparing and contrasting different methodologies within behavioural and neoclassical economics, this dynamic Handbook will be an invaluable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in economics, social psychology, and marketing courses. Policymakers will also benefit from its examination of the implications of behavioural economics for real-world decision making and policy

Economists and others have used the results from behavioral economics to justify paternalistic government policies, aimed at changing an individual's behavior in the present so as to improve that individual's well-being in the future. Examples include the automatic enrollment in pension schemes and anti-smoking measures, such as banning smoking in public places or proposals for a smoking license. But these - and the economic analyses underlying them – have been challenged on the grounds that they arbitrarily privilege one set of preferences over another. The privileged preferences include those of an 'inner rational agent' and those of the future over the present. This paper addresses this criticism and puts forward two new conceptions of - and justifications for – these kinds of policy.