Biased Policy Professionals
A large literature focuses on the biases of individuals and consumers, as well as "nudges" and other policies that can address those biases. Although policy decisions are often more consequential than those of individual consumers, there...
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/685691498482210671/Biased-policy-professionals http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27611 |
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okr-10986-276112021-06-08T14:42:47Z Biased Policy Professionals Banuri, Sheheryar Dercon, Stefan Gauri, Varun BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS POLICY BIAS DECISION MAKING TRAPS RISK AVERSION SUNK COST BIAS CONFIRMATION BIAS IDEOLOGY A large literature focuses on the biases of individuals and consumers, as well as "nudges" and other policies that can address those biases. Although policy decisions are often more consequential than those of individual consumers, there is a dearth of studies on the biases of policy professionals: those who prepare and implement policy on behalf of elected politicians. Experiments conducted on a novel subject pool of development policy professionals (public servants of the World Bank and the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom) show that policy professionals are indeed subject to decision making traps, including sunk cost bias, the framing of losses and gains, frame-dependent risk-aversion, and, most strikingly, confirmation bias correlated with ideological priors, despite having an explicit mission to promote evidence-informed and impartial decision making. These findings should worry policy professionals and their principals in governments and large organizations, as well as citizens themselves. A further experiment, in which policy professionals engage in discussion, shows that deliberation may be able to mitigate the effects of some of these biases. 2017-07-17T21:49:46Z 2017-07-17T21:49:46Z 2017-06 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/685691498482210671/Biased-policy-professionals http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27611 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8113 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper |
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Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English en_US |
| topic |
BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS POLICY BIAS DECISION MAKING TRAPS RISK AVERSION SUNK COST BIAS CONFIRMATION BIAS IDEOLOGY |
| spellingShingle |
BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS POLICY BIAS DECISION MAKING TRAPS RISK AVERSION SUNK COST BIAS CONFIRMATION BIAS IDEOLOGY Banuri, Sheheryar Dercon, Stefan Gauri, Varun Biased Policy Professionals |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8113 |
| description |
A large literature focuses on the biases
of individuals and consumers, as well as "nudges"
and other policies that can address those biases. Although
policy decisions are often more consequential than those of
individual consumers, there is a dearth of studies on the
biases of policy professionals: those who prepare and
implement policy on behalf of elected politicians.
Experiments conducted on a novel subject pool of development
policy professionals (public servants of the World Bank and
the Department for International Development in the United
Kingdom) show that policy professionals are indeed subject
to decision making traps, including sunk cost bias, the
framing of losses and gains, frame-dependent risk-aversion,
and, most strikingly, confirmation bias correlated with
ideological priors, despite having an explicit mission to
promote evidence-informed and impartial decision making.
These findings should worry policy professionals and their
principals in governments and large organizations, as well
as citizens themselves. A further experiment, in which
policy professionals engage in discussion, shows that
deliberation may be able to mitigate the effects of some of
these biases. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
Banuri, Sheheryar Dercon, Stefan Gauri, Varun |
| author_facet |
Banuri, Sheheryar Dercon, Stefan Gauri, Varun |
| author_sort |
Banuri, Sheheryar |
| title |
Biased Policy Professionals |
| title_short |
Biased Policy Professionals |
| title_full |
Biased Policy Professionals |
| title_fullStr |
Biased Policy Professionals |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Biased Policy Professionals |
| title_sort |
biased policy professionals |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2017 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/685691498482210671/Biased-policy-professionals http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27611 |
| _version_ |
1764465488287498240 |