A systematic review of behavioral public policy research: origins, mechanisms and outcomes
Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy
ISSN: 1750-6166
Article publication date: 18 August 2023
Issue publication date: 13 November 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify the origins, mechanisms and outcomes of applying behavioral insight in public policy research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a systematic literature review to answer three research questions. The authors identified 387 primary studies, dated from January 2000 to April 2021 and coded them through a thematic analysis. Related studies were obtained through searching in Emerald, ScienceDirect, Sage, Springer, Wiley and Routledge.
Findings
The results identified eight themes for origins, 16 themes for mechanisms/techniques and 13 outcome-related themes. Through the thematic analysis, the major mechanisms of behavioral approach were found to be social marketing, information provision, social norms, incentives, affect, regulation design, framing, salience, defaults, simplification, networking, environment design, scheduled announcements, commitments, attitude-preference-behavior manifestation and combining behavioral and nonbehavioral mechanisms.
Practical implications
The findings of this review help policymakers to design or redesign policy elements.
Originality/value
This review provides the first systematic exploration of the existing literature on behavioral public policy.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Associate Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable guidance and insightful comments. Special thanks go to Dr Mohammad Reza Jalilvand, Assistant Professor at the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, for guiding this research and encouraging the authors to publish this research, which is part of the doctoral thesis of the first author.
Citation
Mozafar, M., Moini, A. and Sobhanifard, Y. (2023), "A systematic review of behavioral public policy research: origins, mechanisms and outcomes", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 603-631. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-12-2022-0168
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited