THE BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS GUIDE 2016

As we’ve discussed, we ourselves – development professionals – are not exempt from this universal
phenomenon. The WDR team certainly found that we, too, are susceptible to confirmation bias,
sunk cost bias, and other cognitive illusions. In addition, our models of how poor individuals think
and behave are sometimes inaccurate.
We should have used this in our work! For instance, the team certainly would have benefited from a
commitment device. We should have signed a contract requiring us to produce a blank-verse epic
poem singing the praises of neoclassical economics whenever we missed one of our internal
deadlines. We likely suffered from confirmation bias, too, and may in places have underweighted
evidence contrary to our storyline. I rest in peace, however, knowing that critics will be kind enough
to identify those places for us.
The Global Insights Initiative (GINI) was launched on October 22, 2015. Can you tell a little about the initiative?
The Global Insights Initiative aims to bring the ideas and findings of the WDR 2015 to development
policy. Our value proposition is that development policy is more effective when it is based on an
accurate picture of how people think and behave. That is the reason we are setting up the Global
Insights Initiative.
We plan to work in three ways. First, we will collaborate with World Bank teams to incorporate
behavioral and social insights into project design, and then evaluate the impact of those new
designs. Second, we will support governments who want to use behavioral and social insights, both
by incorporating social and behavioral insights into intervention and policy design, and through
capacity building. Finally, we want to change the mental model of policymakers. We want
policymakers to understand that mindsets, social norms, mental models, and psychology have
large effects on economic development. To do that, we will do outreach through workshops and
conferences, and conduct our own research.
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