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Our Work

Nudging can be a child’s play…but it’s not!

  A (funny) reflection on the nature of nudging By Francesco Amighetti and Beatrice Del Frate   Nudge interventions take several forms. Sometimes they can be very sophisticated and relying on long and complex empirical studies, sometimes they can be very nice, funny, and easy to implement. Among the nudges of this second kind, it […]

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“Are You A Voter?”

By Francesco Amighetti and Beatrice Del Frate Few political and social occasions have been needing and taking advantage of behavioural insights as much as the period preceding political elections and the moment of the vote itself. In fact, nowadays, two major problems obstruct the correct and useful functioning of the democratic ritual that voting represents: on […]

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Our Work

App(lication)s of Behavioral Economics

By Francesco Amighetti and Beatrice Del Frate The core principle that is at the heart of the nudge theory is that “change comes not from the inside, but the outside”, as clearly expressed by Dan Ariely – professor of psychology and behavioral economics and director of the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. For […]

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Good Resolutions and How to Keep Them

By Beatrice Del Frate and Francesco Amighetti Christmas holidays represent a good moment to spend time with family and friends and to escape from routine. After majestic meals and never-ending celebrations, the onset of the new year is always accompanied by a list of desires, very likely the ones we had the previous year. Probably […]

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Our Work

Espresso…What else?

Just start with few questions for coffee-addicted people: how many coffees do you take per day and how much sugar do you usually consume per coffee? We all know that the world divides into two types of people: those who like their coffee natural, and those who like it sweet (sometimes very sweet). If you […]

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Interviews

Interview with Guglielmo Briscese

Guglielmo Briscese is a Senior Advisor at the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) in Sydney, Australia. He did his Bachelor’s in Economics from Università Politecnica delle Marche in Italy, MSc. in International Development from University of Glasgow and PhD in Economics from the University of Sydney. The main focus of his research and work are pro-social […]

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Our Work

A little encouragement goes a long way

When we think about improving student performance, we usually think of major changes in the education system, improving infrastructure, hiring more qualified teachers, etc. All of which are important of course, but could we be missing something? Perhaps something less costly and easier to implement? Having someone that supports you in your activities is important. […]

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Our Work

Challenging the Broken-Window theory

How can we prevent individuals from urinating in open areas? In the Nudge TV show “The Power of Habit”, Sille Krukow, a behavioural expert based in Denmark, designed a nudge to help the Copenhagen Central Station. The problem they were faced with was that many men would urinate in hidden corners outside the building, despite […]

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Our Work

Nudges and Social Norms

When are nudges most effective? A study by Pelle Guldborg Hansen, founder of the Danish Nudging Network, a non-profit organisation in Copenhagen, suggests that nudges may work only if they are in line with social norms. They tested two potential “social nudges” in partnership with the local government, both using symbols to try to influence […]

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Our Work

Increasing charitable giving

How can we nudge people to donate to charities? There are many ways to do so, but we would like to share one in particular which is very simple and surprisingly powerful. It seems that peer effects are an effective tool to change people’s behaviour. We want to do what people like us are doing. […]