ABSTRACT
Behavioural insights from psychological science have recently started to have a big impact on public policy through several channels. They have refined traditional behavioural models in economics, brought new insights and perspectives, and encouraged the institutionalisation of new methods for gathering and standards of evidence. This chapter explores the central ideas of the new behavioural perspective, including its principal empirical methods, and how they are applied in public policy. It covers behavioural economics, behavioural insights and nudge on the theory front, and natural experiments, randomised control trials, regression discontinuity design and lab experiments on the empirical front. These ideas are explored through several short case studies of illustrative applications of the behavioural perspective conducted for the Australian government and other policy stakeholders.
