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BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS: A NEW HEAVYWEIGHT IN WASHINGTON?

Neoclassical or traditional economics is based on models about how people should behave when acting in their own best interests. Empirical observations are then fit to these models. In contrast, behavioral economics has been based primarily on observations of how people do behave. This new stream of thought has focused in large part on how individual behaviors deviate from the predictions of more traditional economic approaches. To accomplish this, behavioral economics utilizes a set of tools drawing on approaches from both psychology and economic decision models. Much of the literature in behavioral economics boils down to two main results. The first is that people use heuristics, or rules of thumb, to make choices in a wide variety of settings. Second, these heuristics often lead to errors, in the sense of outcomes that are suboptimal from the viewpoint of a self-interested decision maker. These errors, however, are generally predictable through both observation and understanding of the decision rules employed. Dieting is a useful example to illustrate the differences between the two approaches. Many people do not think their future health is based on their present food choices. A traditional economics approach, based on assumptions of perfect information and maximization of utility or personal well-being, would explain this behavior as being evidence of people not valuing their future much. After all, dieting involves giving up some enjoyment today in order to have a better tomorrow. While discounting of future outcomes is certainly an important part of the story, it does not fully explain individual behavior. When asked, many people would say they do care about their future health more than their actions seem to indicate and that they actually would like to make better food choices. By their own reckoning though, they are failing to meet their goals. Behavioral economics seeks to explain the phenomena that would cause these individual shortcomings. Such errors might have played an important role during the recent obesity crisis, which is a large part of why behavioral economics became such a hot topic in Washington.