Interventions and Cognitive Spillovers
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Interventions and Cognitive Spillovers. / Altmann, Steffen; Grunewald, Andreas; Radbruch, Jonas.
In: The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 89, No. 5, 2022, p. 2293-2328.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Interventions and Cognitive Spillovers
AU - Altmann, Steffen
AU - Grunewald, Andreas
AU - Radbruch, Jonas
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2021.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - This article investigates how incentives and behavioural policy interventions affect individuals’ allocation of scarce cognitive resources. Based on experimental evidence, we demonstrate that incentives systematically influence individuals’ allocation of cognitive resources, and their propensity to actively engage with a decision or to stay passive. Policies that steer individuals’ attention to a specific decision lead to more active decision-making and better choices in the targeted choice domain, but induce negative cognitive spillovers on the quality of choices in other domains. In our setting, these two countervailing effects offset each other, such that the overall payoff consequences of the interventions are essentially zero. We further document that cognitive spillovers are especially pronounced for complex choices and for subgroups of the population with a smaller stock of cognitive resources. We discuss implications for the design and evaluation of behavioural policy interventions.
AB - This article investigates how incentives and behavioural policy interventions affect individuals’ allocation of scarce cognitive resources. Based on experimental evidence, we demonstrate that incentives systematically influence individuals’ allocation of cognitive resources, and their propensity to actively engage with a decision or to stay passive. Policies that steer individuals’ attention to a specific decision lead to more active decision-making and better choices in the targeted choice domain, but induce negative cognitive spillovers on the quality of choices in other domains. In our setting, these two countervailing effects offset each other, such that the overall payoff consequences of the interventions are essentially zero. We further document that cognitive spillovers are especially pronounced for complex choices and for subgroups of the population with a smaller stock of cognitive resources. We discuss implications for the design and evaluation of behavioural policy interventions.
KW - Attention
KW - Cognitive resources
KW - Default options
KW - Nudges
KW - Passivity
KW - Policy interventions
KW - Spillover effects
U2 - 10.1093/restud/rdab087
DO - 10.1093/restud/rdab087
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85160918588
VL - 89
SP - 2293
EP - 2328
JO - Review of Economic Studies
JF - Review of Economic Studies
SN - 0034-6527
IS - 5
ER -
ID: 274121383