Translating Behavioral Economics Evidence into Policy and Practice

I argue (like others before me) that the translation of evidence into policy is in itself a behavioral question with three major barriers or pain points: first, political actors need to know and value the evidence from behavioral economics; second, they need to translate the correct insight into a new context; and third, they need to act on the evidence by implementing the correct insight at scale (see Figure 1). Each of these barriers is the product of both individual and organization-level factors. This paper describes each barrier, the factors that shape it, and discusses best practices and proposed next steps for how to address it.