IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v57y2020i9p1994-2007.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urban climate governance informed by behavioural insights: A commentary and research agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Jeroen van der Heijden

Abstract

Policy and governance interventions often build on a rational choice perspective of human behaviour. Over the years, the behavioural sciences have highlighted how people sometimes deviate in predictable ways from this perspective. Building on a systematic analysis of 200 peer-reviewed publications published between 2009 and 2018, this article discusses the core cognitive biases and heuristics uncovered by the behavioural sciences, and gives insights into how these can be exploited to develop urban climate governance interventions to promote behaviours that help mitigate climate change at city level. The article concludes with a research agenda for this promising area of research for scholars of urban climate governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeroen van der Heijden, 2020. "Urban climate governance informed by behavioural insights: A commentary and research agenda," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(9), pages 1994-2007, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:57:y:2020:i:9:p:1994-2007
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098019864002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098019864002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098019864002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Kahneman & Peter P. Wakker & Rakesh Sarin, 1997. "Back to Bentham? Explorations of Experienced Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 375-406.
    2. Jean François Bissonnette, 2016. "From the moral to the neural: brain scans, decision-making, and the problematization of economic (ir)rationality," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 364-381, August.
    3. Avineri, Erel & Owen D. Waygood, E., 2013. "Applying valence framing to enhance the effect of information on transport-related carbon dioxide emissions," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 31-38.
    4. Ian Ayres & Sophie Raseman & Alice Shih, 2013. "Evidence from Two Large Field Experiments that Peer Comparison Feedback Can Reduce Residential Energy Usage," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(5), pages 992-1022, October.
    5. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    6. Laibson, David I. & Agarwal, Sumit & Driscoll, John C. & Gabaix, Xavier, 2009. "The Age of Reason: Financial Decisions over the Life-Cycle with Implications for Regulation," Scholarly Articles 4554335, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. Jose-Luis Pinto-Prades & Jose-Maria Abellan-Perpiñan, 2012. "When normative and descriptive diverge: how to bridge the difference," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(4), pages 569-584, April.
    8. Roger Fouquet (ed.), 2013. "Handbook on Energy and Climate Change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14429.
    9. Cass R. Sunstein, 2017. "Human Agency and Behavioral Economics," Palgrave Advances in Behavioral Economics, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-3-319-55807-3, February.
    10. Sumit Agarwal & John C. Driscoll & Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson, 2009. "The Age of Reason: Financial Decisions over the Life Cycle and Implications for Regulation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(2 (Fall)), pages 51-117.
    11. Simon Hedlin & Cass R. Sunstein, "undated". "Does Active Choosing Promote Green Energy Use? Experimental Evidence," Working Paper 320286, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    12. Milne, Eugene M.G., 2012. "A public health perspective on transport policy priorities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 62-69.
    13. Raymond S. Hartman & Michael J. Doane & Chi-Keung Woo, 1991. "Consumer Rationality and the Status Quo," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 141-162.
    14. Greene, David L., 2011. "Uncertainty, loss aversion, and markets for energy efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 608-616, July.
    15. George Loewenstein & Cass R. Sunstein & Russell Golman, 2014. "Disclosure: Psychology Changes Everything," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 391-419, August.
    16. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Jun Guan Neoh & Maxwell Chipulu & Alasdair Marshall, 2017. "What encourages people to carpool? An evaluation of factors with meta-analysis," Transportation, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 423-447, March.
    18. Daniel Kahneman & Jack L. Knetsch & Richard H. Thaler, 1991. "Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 193-206, Winter.
    19. Furnham, Adrian & Boo, Hua Chu, 2011. "A literature review of the anchoring effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 35-42, February.
    20. Datta,Saugato & Miranda Montero,Juan Jose & Zoratto,Laura De Castro & Calvo-Gonzalez,Oscar & Darlingm,Matthew & Lorenzana,Karina Josephine Orduna, 2015. "A behavioral approach to water conservation: evidence from Costa Rica," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7283, The World Bank.
    21. Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2015. "Present Bias: Lessons Learned and to Be Learned," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 273-279, May.
    22. Benhabib, Jess & Bisin, Alberto & Schotter, Andrew, 2010. "Present-bias, quasi-hyperbolic discounting, and fixed costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 205-223, July.
    23. Thomas Rixen & Lora Anne Viola, 2015. "Putting path dependence in its place: toward a Taxonomy of institutional change," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(2), pages 301-323, April.
    24. Friedman, Daniel & Isaac, R. Mark & James, Duncan & Sunder, Shyam, 2014. "Risky Curves: On the Empirical Failure of Expected Utility," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt87v8k86z, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Noelle Greenwood & Peter Warren, 2022. "The role of climate finance beyond renewables: Behavioural insights," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(8), pages 1570-1586, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Häckel, Björn & Pfosser, Stefan & Tränkler, Timm, 2017. "Explaining the energy efficiency gap - Expected Utility Theory versus Cumulative Prospect Theory," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 414-426.
    2. Laura Abrardi, 2019. "Behavioral barriers and the energy efficiency gap: a survey of the literature," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 46(1), pages 25-43, March.
    3. L. Mundaca & H. Moncreiff, 2021. "New Perspectives on Green Energy Defaults," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 357-383, September.
    4. Edsel L. Beja, 2017. "The Asymmetric Effects of Macroeconomic Performance on Happiness: Evidence for the EU," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 52(3), pages 184-190, May.
    5. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    6. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    7. D'Orlando, Fabio & Ferrante, Francesco, 2009. "The demand for job protection: Some clues from behavioural economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 104-114, January.
    8. Hobman, Elizabeth V. & Frederiks, Elisha R. & Stenner, Karen & Meikle, Sarah, 2016. "Uptake and usage of cost-reflective electricity pricing: Insights from psychology and behavioural economics," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 455-467.
    9. Zhihua Li & Songfa Zhong, 2023. "Reference Dependence in Intertemporal Preference," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 475-490, January.
    10. Roee Teper, 2010. "Probabilistic Dominance and Status Quo Bias," Working Paper 5864, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh.
    11. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2006. "Income and happiness: Evidence, explanations and economic implications," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590436, HAL.
    12. Brian Chi-ang Lin & Siqi Zheng & Doruk İriş, 2016. "Economic Targets And Loss-Aversion In International Environmental Cooperation," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 624-648, July.
    13. Heribert Gierl & Roland Helm & Stefan Stumpp, 2001. "Wertfunktion der Prospect-Theorie, Produktpräferenzen und Folgerungen für das Marketing," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 53(6), pages 559-588, September.
    14. Riella, Gil & Teper, Roee, 2014. "Probabilistic dominance and status quo bias," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 288-304.
    15. Burmeister, Katrin & Schade, Christian, 2007. "Are entrepreneurs' decisions more biased? An experimental investigation of the susceptibility to status quo bias," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 340-362, May.
    16. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    17. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    18. Frederiks, Elisha R. & Stenner, Karen & Hobman, Elizabeth V., 2015. "Household energy use: Applying behavioural economics to understand consumer decision-making and behaviour," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1385-1394.
    19. Julia Blasch & Claudio Daminato, 2018. "Behavioral anomalies and energy-related individual choices: the role of status-quo bias," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 18/300, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    20. Cynthia Weiyi Cai, 2020. "Nudging the financial market? A review of the nudge theory," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(4), pages 3341-3365, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:57:y:2020:i:9:p:1994-2007. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.