The folks at Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman are celebrating the upcoming release of their new book, Cash Transfers for Inclusive Societies: A Behavioural Lens, which was co-edited by DIBS’ own Jiaying Zhao.
About Cash Transfers for Inclusive Societies (available on Oct. 12)
While much progress has been made in reducing poverty worldwide – especially in the pre-pandemic era – it is fair to say that an unacceptably large proportion of the world’s people still live in poverty. Cash Transfers for Inclusive Societies sheds light on the widely prevalent cash transfer programs. The book asks these central questions: What is the state of the art in the development of welfare programs? What do we know works in these programs and what does not? How can an understanding of behavioral science better inform the design, delivery, and evaluation of welfare programs?
The latest title in the Behaviorally Informed Organizations series, the book develops a nuanced framework for how governments, practitioners, and society in general should design cash transfer programs to improve inclusivity, reduce poverty, and improve equality. It draws on field experiments and case studies to showcase past successes, while also building frameworks and developing prescriptive advice that we can give to practitioners who are looking to design a behaviorally informed cash transfer program. With contributions from leading academics as well as seasoned practitioners, Cash Transfers for Inclusive Societies presents a new model to policymakers to study and shift the discourse on poverty alleviation from purely economic factors to also behavioral ones.
Book Launch Event: Inclusive Economies: Exploring the Social Assistance Landscape
BEAR will be hosting an in-person event on Nov. 8 at the University of Toronto to launch the book. An expert panel will discuss how behavioural economics can shape social assistance programs and the state of these programs in Canada.
Speakers:
- The Honourable Kim Pate, Senator
- The Honourable Pau Yuen Woo, Senator
- Saugato Datta, Managing Director, ideas42; co-editor
- Jiaying Zhao, Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Sustainability; Associate Professor, Department of Psychology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia; co-editor
- Moderator: Dilip Soman, Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics; Director of the Behavioural Economics in Action Research Centre (BEAR), Rotman School of Management; co-editor
Learn more about the book or the event.