Many households lack savings to cushion them from financial shocks. While behavioural economics offers insights into why some households who want to save may fail to do so, successful behavioural interventions to increase precautionary saving are elusive. We incorporated multiple evidence-based...

If an aim of a regulatory body is to act on behalf of the views of its citizenry, then it is important to understand what those views are. This paper, in collaboration with the OECD and the Scottish water industry, presents the results of an online (n= 500) and face-to-face laboratory (n= 100)...

If it is the responsibility of a regulatory body to decide where to prioritise future investment, then it is important to understand the priorities of the citizenry it represents. This paper, in collaboration with the OECD and the Scottish water industry, presents the results of an online (n=...

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic will save lives. We tested communication strategies to promote social distancing via an online experiment (N = 500) commissioned by Ireland's Department of Health. A control group saw a current informational poster. Two treatment groups saw similar...

Transitioning to the green economy relies on new developments that may negatively affect people's localities and involve certain risks. This study investigates how people form opinions about such developments, using mineral exploration and mining as an example. A representative sample (N=1000)...

A new model of exchange is presented following Marr's conception of a "computational theory". The model combines assumptions from perceptual theory and economic theory to develop a highly generalised formal model. The approach departs from previous models by focussing not on how ownership alters...

We hypothesise and confirm a novel empirical result concerning the willingness to accept (WTA)-willingness to pay (WTP) disparity. Employing data from what has become the classic experimental design, we reveal systematic variation in the relative magnitudes of three valuations: WTA, WTP and...

People underestimate long-term growth in savings because they linearise exponential growth - a phenomenon known as exponential growth bias (EGB). This bias has implications for multiple financial decisions, particularly those relating to pensions. We hypothesised that underestimation might be...

Encouraging consumers to seek out and switch to lower-rate mortgages is important both for the individual consumer's finances and for functioning competitive markets, but switching rates are low. We conducted an experiment with mortgage-holders to test whether official advice on how to select...