The Network for Integrated Behavioural Science  
University of Nottingham
  
Choice Sign Pointing Left and Right

Our colleagues at the University of East Anglia took the lead engaging with Ofcom earlier this month (April 2018), as part of a sponsored workshop scheme that the Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) has with seven major regulators.  The workshop was delivered by the full NIBS team with added interventions from other CCP members.

Professor Bruce Lyons, NIBS Management Group member and Deputy Director of CCP explains; "Our first team research project aims to understand consumer engagement with choice decisions, so we focused on this.  We gave four short presentations and Ofcom shared the research they have been doing. This was followed a very active roundtable discussion.  Ofcom said the workshop had been extremely interesting and stimulating, in terms of generating discussion and the exchange of ideas; and they would certainly follow up some of the research papers we cited in our presentations to help develop their understanding in this area." 

Details of the topics discussed:

  • Selected new developments in behavioural science with a particular focus on issues relevant to consumer attention and engagement (by Ted Turocy & Bob Sugden)
  • How do firms respond to 'behavioural consumers' and why does this matter?  IO modelling and econometric evidence (by Bruce Lyons)
  • How far should regulators go?  Liberal paternalism vs opportunity provision (by Bob Sugden)
  • Ofcom’s interest in behavioural economics (by Ofcom)
  • Some practical implications for regulators more generally (by Amelia Fletcher)

We would like to thank all organisers and participants for making this such a success, and NIBS Management Group will be discussing how to get involved in more of these types of events in the future.

Posted on Friday 27th April 2018

NIBS - Network for Integrated Behavioural Science

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email: chris.starmer@nottingham.ac.uk