Individual pension accounts are growing in importance as a pillar of retirement incomes policy in the developed world. Policy-makers have generally assumed that by introducing pre-funded pension schemes, they can increase household wealth and thereby raise retirement incomes. However, there has been relatively little empirical work to confirm this. This paper uses microeconomic data from...

This roundtable explored the application of behavioural economics to public policy development and addressed two main questions: how do behavioural economic insights help policy makers achieve given policy goals more effectively; and can the findings of behavioural economics be used to support or justify a particular policy goal?

This roundtable examined the policy implications of behavioural economics – a relatively new field that applies insights from psychology to economic issues and analysis. Participants discussed the contribution that behavioural economics can make to a broader understanding of people’s motivation and behaviour in markets and the implications for policy and regulatory approaches. Behavioural economics has...

This reports the results of a three-year investigation which aimed to develop a measurement of prediction of community intended behaviour in relation to the reuse of different wastewaters for different uses. It has been apparent that communities support the concept of water reuse as a means of responsible water resources management. However, many technically sound...

Governments, planners and analysts across Australia agree that mode shift from the automobile to walking, cycling and public transport is desirable for environmental, social and health reasons, but in all our major cities trends are heading in the opposite direction. Various remedies have been proposed, but all have their drawbacks. Road pricing, for example, is...