Behavioral Science in Development

The American University of Armenia (AUA) College of Business and Economics and the Center for Business and Research Development (CBDR) will be hosting a public talk regarding behavioral sciences in development, led by AUA Adjunct Lecturer Armenak Antinyan, and Assistant Professor Vardan Baghdasaryan. The event is aimed to provide an introduction to how behavioral sciences can be used for policy-making in the fields of taxation, health, environment and the like. Results of a laboratory experiment conducted in Italy on how voters respond to electoral fraud with varying their participation rates will be presented.

Recent developments vividly illustrate the power of behavioral sciences to promote development and combat poverty, by explaining the decisions of individuals in such aspects as savings, investment, tax compliance, energy consumption, health and child rearing (World Development Report, 2015). In this respect, “Behavioral Insights (BIs) have progressively been recognized as a valuable input to policy-making by major international organizations, such as the European Commission (EC), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank (European Insights to Applied Policy, 2016).”

A few national governments either have established specialized teams to inform policy-making by BIs, or have called for national agencies or policy departments to use BIs.