In the United States, the information companies are required to disclose to consumers can take several forms. Some disclosures are statements displayed on a product (“Warning: Cigarettes Cause Strokes and Heart Disease”). Others are numbers, from product characteristics (calories) to government ratings (Crash Safety Ratings). And some are notifications about certain actions (like the charging of […]
Behavioral economics’ most successful large-scale impacts have so far been in the developed world, with notable successes including the headway made on getting Americans to save for retirement or the many successes of Britain’s Nudge Unit. But at ideas42, we believe that behavioral economics can also dramatically change the way development programs work (for the […]
Of late, ideas42 co-founders Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir and their co-authors (including ideas42 affiliate Anuj Shah) have been looking into a fascinating question: does poverty create additional psychological and cognitive burdens? Is there some way in which poverty makes people take worse decision? The short – and fascinating – answer is: yes. Dave Nussbaum’s blog Random […]
ideas42 co-founder Sendhil Mullainathan was recently at the World Bank, where he spoke about behavioral design and development. The World Bank’s “All About Finance” blog has a nice summary of the talk. Quite apart from anything else, the post provides a good introduction to what ideas42 is about and why it was founded: “(M)any studies […]
Another one from the archive: In this TED talk from 2010, Sendhil talks about something that animates a lot of the work ideas42 does: the problems we know how to solve, in a technical sense, but don’t. “We know how to reduce child deaths due to diarrhea, how to prevent diabetes-related blindness and how to […]
Several years since a collapse in house prices triggered the deepest financial and economic crisis in post-war American history, almost one in eight mortgage borrowers in the US are now either delinquent or in foreclosure proceedings. However, despite the considerable resources invested in various loan modification programs, the benefits have not reached the majority of […]
In his conversation with Glenn Loury, Sendhil Mullainathan touched on the stresses of parenting. But how does poverty affect all this? Is there reason to believe that a harried single mother who is also poor will have an even harder time doing the things needed for her child to do well than a harried single […]
How should findings about discipline and self-control shape policies to prevent over-indebtedness? How should the ways people learn and retain knowledge shape financial education programs? What are the best ways to disclose product costs and terms in a way that is relevant to consumers’ daily lives? These were some of the key questions explored in […]
Congress established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in July 2011 with the goal of promoting accountability, fairness, and transparency in the financial industry. The CFPB works to provide consumers with honest, accessible information about financial regulations and to help them understand their own relationships with financial institutions as mortgagers, credit card providers, and investment banks. […]
Millions of people carry huge credit card balances. Is it because they don’t understand the costs? Millions more don’t set aside money in a retirement account. Do they not understand the benefits? The conventional answer to both questions is yes. The conventional response is to offer them personal finance 101. Building financial literacy is a […]
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