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chrishp
Chrishp bookmarked on 2009-10-12 future innovation economics policy bias psychology
  • this painful and expensive lesson caused businesses and policy makers to recognize three main lessons: 1) human beings have many irrational tendencies, fallibilities, and quirks; 2) we often have bad intuitions and a limited understanding of our irrational tendencies and; 3) if we want to create effective policies we shouldn’t rely on our intuitions for finding recommendations nor on the assumption that people behave rationally; instead, we should ground our recommendations in how people actually behave.
  • After a few years spent watching in awe as business productivity improved,  government policymakers followed suit by implementing experiments with the Education-Forward Initiative (formerly No Child Left Behind). These experiments showed that basing teachers’ salaries on student performances had minor short-term benefits and caused substantial long-term damage on teacher and student motivation; that creating interest in education was more important than grades; and that shifting the curriculum focus from calculus to statistics and probability had a wonderful impact on students.
  • Between 2019 and 2025, experimental policy, which became a more established field, examined the simplification of the income tax (with huge social and tax benefits) and studied incentives that encouraged people to get routine medical exams (with tremendous long-term benefits).
  • But given our realization of how little we truly understand ourselves and the systems we design, combined with an appreciation for the benefits of detailed experimental investigations and empiricism, we are trying to solve this important issue by setting up multiple different experimental programs.  In some of these the levels of co-pay are low, in some medium and in some high.  In some of these programs the focus is in specialists, while in others the focus on the family doctor, and some focus on treating patients while other focus on preventative care and education.

This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 12 Oct 2009, by Jimmy Breeze.

  • 12 Oct 09
    chrishp
    Jimmy Breeze

    future innovation economics policy bias psychology

    • this painful and expensive lesson caused businesses and policy makers to recognize three main lessons: 1) human beings have many irrational tendencies, fallibilities, and quirks; 2) we often have bad intuitions and a limited understanding of our irrational tendencies and; 3) if we want to create effective policies we shouldn’t rely on our intuitions for finding recommendations nor on the assumption that people behave rationally; instead, we should ground our recommendations in how people actually behave.
    • After a few years spent watching in awe as business productivity improved,  government policymakers followed suit by implementing experiments with the Education-Forward Initiative (formerly No Child Left Behind). These experiments showed that basing teachers’ salaries on student performances had minor short-term benefits and caused substantial long-term damage on teacher and student motivation; that creating interest in education was more important than grades; and that shifting the curriculum focus from calculus to statistics and probability had a wonderful impact on students.
    • 2 more annotations...