Not only financial resources are scarce, cognitive resources are too. To address this, human beings are wired to be able to make decisions (e.g. choosing how much to save, what to eat, which school to go to, opening a door) using both deliberative and automatic processes. However, the way that we use these two systems can often lead in sub-optimal choices. This is especially true within a context of poverty, which increases the cognitive burden on individuals. Poverty is not simply a shortfall of money, it also imposes a cognitive tax. It affects many aspects of people’s lives including their mindsets and how they take decisions. The constant hard choices associated with poverty cause stress, which affects economic (but not only) decisions and can lead to the perpetuation of poverty. These decisions do not arise because of deviant values or because the poor do not know what is best for them; it is the context of poverty that can cause and influence behaviors and the process of decision making in important ways (WDR 2015).
Fortunately, the existing literature - especially in medical science and neuroscience - suggests that individuals are malleable in that their mindsets and decision-making can be influenced directly and indirectly. This provides with an opportunity for policy. Directly, one could address stress by providing psychological support to individuals. Indirectly, focusing on processes and user experience can also help people make better decisions by making the environment easier to navigate. For example, simplifying complex enrolment rules for specific interventions can make it easier for people to engage with a program, thus improving take up of interventions.
Such insights imply that psychological channels can be seen as both inputs and outcomes in economic decision making. Yet, many social policies do not always take these issues into consideration. And while many programs work “on average”, we often know much less about group heterogeneity and how to design or adapt policies for specific populations (e.g. gender, geography, culture). In addition, many policies are built on assumptions about the malleability (or not) of individual’s psychological traits (personality characteristics or socio-emotional skills) and on the role that culture and social norms play into individual and group behavior, in many cases based on the assumptions and beliefs of policy designers themselves.
The 2015 WDR, Mind Society and Behavior has gone deep into these ideas and concepts and has put on the table many examples where the behavioral lens can add value in our development work. Most of the examples are from small scale pilots, often done in high income countries settings. In recent years, several high income countries, like the UK and more recently the US, have set up units aiming at taking advantage of these insights to design innovative and effective policies or improve existing ones. The question then becomes how to apply this approach in an institution like the World Bank in a systematic way and apply it in developing countries? How can we best support our client countries in taking advantage of these tools?
Behavioral Initiatives (BI) is a multidisciplinary team in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice whose core objective is to support the use of behavioral insights by World Bank staff and clients in diagnosing, designing and evaluating interventions to reduce poverty and enhance equity. While all policies undergo a process of diagnostics, a behaviorally informed diagnosis focuses into a wider set of determinants of behavior, paying attention to context and psychological factors that can influence decision making. It also explores potential bottlenecks in existing systems and mechanisms of service delivery that can also affect how people interact with them (with emphasis in design details which might be overlooked). By doing so, it can give rise to innovative complementary solutions for policy improvement.
This multi-year program is centered on 3 themes:
• Theme 1: Generate evidence (two sub-themes):
o Improve policies and service quality using choice architecture
o Improve the psychological resources of the poorest and vulnerable
• Theme 2: Mindstats: measure psychological well-being and behavioral dimensions
• Theme 3: Design behavioral diagnostics tools
Note: If the selected candidate is a current Bank Group staff member with a Regular or Open-Ended appointment, s/he will retain his/her Regular or Open-Ended appointment. All others will be offered a 1 year term appointment.
Duties and Accountabilities:
The successful candidate is expected to work in range of activities, including:
1. Support the design, implementation and analysis of randomized control trials to improve the well-being of the poor using behavioral insights approaches
2. Working with other researchers to support the design and field work of new data collection on a range of measures of well-being
3. Report writing
4. Policy dialogue
5. Training and dissemination
Selection Criteria:
1. The successful candidate will have a minimum of Ph.D. or MS with minimum of 3 years of experience
2. Strong skills and experience in at least 2 of the following areas: (a) behavioral science (b) randomized trials; (c) survey-based methodological experiments (on areas such as measurement of welfare, labor market, cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes); (e) advanced computer programming (preferably STATA and CAPI); and (f) data collection and field experience.
3. Ability to speak, read and write in English and at least one more language preferred.
The appointment is for 1 year, renewable upon satisfactory performance. The successful candidate will report to Renos Vakis (Lead Economist, GPVDR).
