What Is a Mistake? Guardrails for Behavioral Public Policy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4188898 |
|---|---|
| Authors | B Douglas Bernheim (0000-0002-6483-7622, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 92 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 35-74 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-783X • E-ISSN: 1944-768X |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/sor.2025.a956286 |
| OpenAlex | W4409180972 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
Findings from behavioral economics and psychology potentially identify expanded paternalistic roles for government. There is an urgent need for clear conceptual guardrails that spell out empirically verifiable conditions under which these paternalistic interventions may be justified. This article advocates a framework that defines mistakes only as errors in two components of decision-making: characterization and optimization . It also discusses empirical strategies for identifying mistakes
Business · Computer security · Mistake · Political science · Community Health and Development · Computer Science · Law · Psychology
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |