Column Making the right choices

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: Independence day turned out to be pay day for nearly 17 million public sector employees. Not to their uniform satisfaction however, as they had asked for substantially more than the 21% average increase announced. After all in the private corporate sector managerial salary increases often exceed 50% annually. Yet the public at large appear profoundly unenthusiastic about public sector pay increase, given the quality of delivered government services - poor to the point of aggravation in many front-line government offices. Able and incorruptible government officers concede readily that the quality of public service delivery needs substantial improvement.

The way power is exercised in governance flows from the institutional environment in which citizens interact with government agencies and officials. Many aspects of this environment are difficult to reform. There are no obvious miracle cures, however there is a new approach (forcefully articulated only recently) for achieving better governance with less coercion and constraint, that is attracting attention around the world. Barak Obama has built its guiding principle into his administrative policy. In Britain, David Cameron the conservative leader, placed the book articulating the strategy ( Nudge , by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein) in the summer reading list for his party. In a novel experiment, the conservative local council of Barnet in England is to receive government funds to test Nudge economics, to reduce litter, increase recycling and lower carbon emissions.

To a large extent public services will be more efficiently delivered if it is possible to guide people to specific outcomes that are in accord with the common cause without having to use direct regulation. The basic argument in Nudge is that using findings from behavioural economics, it should be possible in many instances to shrewdly persuade people to do the right thing without outright bans or requirements. So how can we be encouraged to make better choices for ourselves and for the society we live in? For example, how can I be persuaded to save enough, or to conserve energy, or to pay my taxes in time? How might our neighbours be influenced to make choices that are better for the neighbourhood - for example, picking up their litter, not honking?