Behavioral economics — arising from the insight that people make recognizable, systematic mistakes — has revolutionized policymaking. For example, in governments around the world, including the US, teams of experts have recently arisen to harness these insights, promising to do things like increase retirement savings. But there is a problem: Economic experts do not look or think like the rest of the population. They are deeply unrepresentative demographically and have quite different policy views.
In this episode of the CLE's vlog & podcast series, Prof. Alexander Stremitzer (ETH Zurich) talks to Prof. Daniel Markovits (Yale) about a new approach to behavioral economics called "democratic law and economics", a concept developed by Markovits and Prof. Zachary D. Liscow (Yale). Rather than dictating what the right policy or action is, they suggest that behavioral economists instead inform representative samples of ordinary people about the evidence and let them decide for themselves. Those decisions, rather than experts’ opinions alone, should then inform policymakers.
Paper References:
Zachary D. Liscow - Yale Law School
Daniel Markovits - Yale Law School
Democratizing Behavioral Economics
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4012996
Audio Credits for Trailer:
AllttA by AllttA
https://youtu.be/ZawLOcbQZ2w
