Editors’ Note

Welcome to Volume 2, Issue 2 of Behavioral Science & Policy (BSP). This is this first of two issues that will showcase behavioral insights at the federal level.

We begin with the first two papers from the Behavioral Science & Policy Association’s (BSPA) working groups whose mission was to identify promising new applications of behavioral insights for federal policymakers. These groups were organized to inform the work of the White House Social and Behavioral Science Team. In addition, this issue contains articles on applying behavioral insights to macroeconomic policy and it takes stock of lessons learned by the British Behavioural Insights Team from their experience conducting policy experiments. Other papers in this issue address a wide range of policy issues from voting to policing to health.

With his perspective as Chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman observes that the impact of behavioral science on public policy has been limited by the traditional approach of starting with behavioral tools and looking for problems to address. Chairman Furman asserts that behavioral science can have even greater impact by starting with major policy problems and looking for relevant behavioral tools that can help address those problems, echoing a recommendation we made in our article that appeared in the inaugural issue of BSP [Fox, C.R. & Sitkin, S. (2015). Bridging the divide between behavioral science & policy. Behavioral Science & Policy, 1(1), 1–12]. In particular he identifies and illustrates four economic policy challenges: ending recessions, mitigating climate change, addressing reduced male labor force participation, and moderating economic inequality.

A second contribution to this issue describes behavioral policy approaches taken by a unit that was initially part of the British federal government. Michael Sanders and David Halpern report on the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team’s extensive experience conducting policy field experiments and helping to build behavioral science networks around the world. They offer guidelines for other behavioral policy units, some of which may seem natural (for example, do small pre-tests and observational studies before launching large-scale field experiments) and several of which are less obvious (for example, start by running multivariable trials to find an effect before running targeted studies to isolate what causes the effects). The authors conclude by characterizing the growth and impact of behavioral science-based policy initiatives around the world.

In this issue we are also pleased to offer the first two reports to emerge from an initiative of the BSPA in support of the White House Social and Behavioral Science Team. We commissioned working groups to examine promising opportunities for the social and behavioral sciences to inform new policies and policy experiments that can help the federal government serve the public interest in various policy areas.

The first working group article, by Aguinis, Davis, Detert, Glynn, Jackson, Kochan, Kossek, Leana, Lee, Morrison, Pearce, Pfeffer, Rousseau, and Sutcliffe, taps the Federal Employee Values Survey to identify major management and labor needs of the agencies. The report then draws on organizational science research to identify opportunities for improvement in three areas: employee motivation, voice, and collaboration. The second report, by Sah, Tannenbaum, Cleary, Feldman, Glaser, Lerman, MacCoun, Maguire, Slovic, Spellman, Spohn, and Winship, focuses on justice and ethics. This report offers policy recommendations for addressing bias and unequal treatment in the courts, in pretrial detention, and in policing—for example, through the use of blinding procedures and the handling of prejudicial information.

These reports highlight both the significant opportunities for using currently available information and for undertaking new research relevant to addressing the kind of big policy questions noted in Jason Furman’s opening essay. Part of our motivation for establishing this journal was to disseminate such research results and identify new research opportunities, and so we are pleased to publish key insights here, with supplementary material available on the BSPA website. In the next issue of BSP we look forward to presenting additional working group reports on health care, education, development, innovation, household finance, and energy and the environment.

In addition to our special focus on behavioral policy at the federal level, the present issue features a...