Behavioral Public Policy and Economics GmbH
From climate change to pandemics, many of today’s most pressing challenges demand global cooperation. But individual incentives often prevent people from cooperating. Traditionally, researchers modeled these situations as a binary choice: Invest in a public solution, or not invest and free-ride on others’ efforts.
As the climate crisis intensifies, many fear that growing scarcity of resources such as water, arable land, or energy will inevitably fuel conflict. Already, we see tensions over carbon emissions between historically high-emitting countries and those playing catch-up, disputes over fish stocks and the regulation of the world’s fisheries, and increasing concerns about access to water and land in vulnerable regions. These examples suggest that scarce resources can become a source of geopolitical tension.
A $4.50 Nudge That Changed How Rural Niger Sends Money Home. What a randomized experiment in West Africa tells us about breaking the barriers to mobile money adoption. An opinion piece by Prof. Dr. Michael Grimm.
Artificial intelligence has become the rising promise of consumer insight. It analyses and breaks down immense amounts of behavioral data, detects patterns (that probably humans would miss), and powers a new generation of hyper-personalized experiences and visibility into customer preferences, purchase patterns, and social interactions.
The community paper on “Behavioral Insights for Vision 2030 and beyond” is now also available in Arabic.
Over the last couple of months, we attended several conferences in Behavioral Public Policy including the IAREP in Tartu, BX2025 in Abu Dhabi, and this week the IBPPC in London.
Each of these events was inspiring and we enjoyed learning from our peers and colleagues about the latest advances in our field. At the same time, we sometimes found ourselves a bit surprised by the direction in which discussions are heading. In particular, our perspective on the future of BPP seems to differ in several ways from the topics currently dominating the conversations.
Marketing in Saudi Arabia is evolving at an unprecedented pace, shaped by Vision 2030 reforms, a booming digital economy, and a generational shift in consumer mindset. Among this transformation, one of the most influential drivers of consumer behavior remains social norms. These unwritten rules, grounded in shared expectations and collective behavior, play a central role in how Saudis choose what to wear, eat, drive, and buy.
Over the past decade, Behavioral Insights (BI) have become a powerful tool for enhancing policy effectiveness worldwide. In Saudi Arabia, an active BI community has been leveraging these insights across various policy sectors. A new paper published by a group of leading experts in the Saudi BI community – among them our Managing Director Dr. Manuel Schubert – discusses how Vision 2030 can further benefit from the systematic use of BI, particularly in education and human capability development.
In the world of consulting, success is often measured by how long a firm stays embedded in a client’s operations. The longer the engagement, the more valuable the relationship, so the logic goes. But what if real impact lies in doing the opposite? What if the most transformative consulting work is the kind that ends?
Modern remote work and large collaborative online projects are both a blessing and a challenge. On one hand, they enable flexible working arrangements and bring together global expertise. On the other hand, the physical distance among team members makes us more susceptible to behavioral biases.