Dr Matteo M Galizzi

Dr Jet Sanders

Elisabeth Costa

This course is available on the Executive MSc in Behavioural Science. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

The world's hardest problems — from preventing chronic disease to regulating the harmful impacts of social media and emerging AI systems — don't sit neatly within disciplinary boundaries. And the behavioural science toolkit has evolved well beyond nudging. This course takes you to the frontier, through the lens of health policy and regulation. 

We start with the foundations: how people perceive risk, process information, and make decisions about their health and lives. But we move quickly to the harder questions that leaders in policy, regulation, and industry are grappling with now. Why do well-designed incentives backfire? When does more information make decisions worse, not better? How should regulators respond when markets actively exploit behavioural biases, and what does a "behavioural regulator" look like in practice? 

You'll work through the full spectrum of modern behavioural science: from “classic” field experiments to personalised digital interventions and AI-driven approaches to mental health. We go beyond the "nudge" framework to examine an extended toolkit: 'nudge+', boosts, behavioural incentives, and using behavioural science to shape markets and systems. 

The course is grounded in real-world application and taught by a team of leading academics and practitioners. Case studies span diet and nutrition, vaccination, antimicrobial resistance, tobacco and e-cigarettes, pandemic response, medical decision-making, and the design of digital health tools; as well as the regulation of digital markets, social media, and AI. You'll examine how behavioural insights are reshaping the food system, doctor-patient interactions, and the regulatory landscape in the UK and beyond. 

This is a course for students who want to use behavioural science in sophisticated and adaptive ways to tackle real world challenges. You'll develop the ability to critically assess where and how behavioural science can drive meaningful change, and to apply rigorous, evidence-based approaches to the complex challenges you face in your own organisations and sectors. 

The course is delivered through a combination of lectures and seminars totalling a minimum of 20 hours in the third teaching session (April).

Students will be expected to produce 1 presentation during the teaching session and 1 other piece of coursework after the teaching session.

• Charness G, Gneezy U (2009) Incentives to exercise. Econometrica, 77(3), 909-931.
• Costa-Font J, Galizzi MM (2024). Behavioural Economics and Policy for Pandemics: Behavioural Insights from Responses to COVID-19. Cambridge University Press.
• Costa E, King K, Dutta R, Algate F (2016). Applying behavioural insights to regulated markets.
• Costa E, Halpern D (2019). The behavioural science of online harm and manipulation, and what to do about it.
• Dai, H., Saccardo, S., Han, M. A., Roh, L., Raja, N., Vangala, S., Modi, H., Pandya, S., Sloyan, M., & Croymans, D. M. (2021). Behavioral Nudges Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations. Nature, 597, 404-409. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03843-2
• Dolan P, Galizzi MM (2015) Like ripples on a pond: behavioural spillovers and their consequences for research and policy. Journal of Economic Psychology, 47, 1-16.
• Galizzi MM (2014). What is really behavioural in behavioural health policy? And, does it work? Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 36(1), 25-60.
• Galizzi MM, Wiesen D (2017). Behavioural experiments in health: An introduction. Health economics, 26(S3), 3-5.
• Galizzi MM, Wiesen D (2018). Behavioural Experiments in Health Economics. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance. Oxford University Press.
• Halpern D, Costa E, Makinson L, Broughton N (2024). The shrouded economy.
• Hanoch Y, Barnes AJ, Rice T (2017). Behavioral Economics and Healthy Behaviors. Routledge.
• Lunn PD, Belton CA, Lavin C, McGowan FP, Timmons S, & Robertson DA (2020). Using Behavioral Science to help fight the Coronavirus. Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 3(1).
• Roberto CA, Kawachi I (2016). Behavioral Economics and Public Health. Oxford University Press.
• Ruggeri K., Haslam A., Capraro V., Boggio, P., Ellemers, N., Cichoka, A., Douglas, K., Rand, D., van der Linden, S., Cikara, M., Finkel, E., Druckman, J,N., Wohl, M., Petty, R., Tucker, J.A., Shariff, A., Gelfand, M., Packer, D., Jetten, J., Van Lange, P., Pennycook, G., Peters, E., Baicker, K., Crum, A., Weeden, K., Napper, L., Tabri, N., Zaki, J., Skitka, L., Kitayama, S., Mobbs, D., Sunstein, C., Galizzi, M.M., Milkman, K.L., Petrovic, M., van Bavel, J., Willer R., et al. (2022). A synthesis of evidence for policy from behavioural science during COVID-19. Nature, 625, 134-147. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06840-9
• Schwartz JA, Chapman GB (1999). Are more options always better? The attraction effect in physicians' decisions about medications. Medical Decision Making, 19, 315-323.
• Steinert, J., Sternberg, H., Prince, H., Fasolo, B., Galizzi, M.M., Buthe, T., & Veltri, G.A. (2022). COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Eight European Countries: Prevalence, Determinants and Heterogeneity. Science Advances. 2022, 8(17). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abm9825
• Van Bavel JJ, Baicker K, Boggio PS, Capraro V, Cichocka A, Cikara M, Crockett MJ, Crum AJ, Douglas KM, Druckman JN, Drury J, Dube O, Ellemers N, Finkel EJ, Fowler JH, Gelfand M, Han S, Halsam SA, Jetten J, … & Willer R (2020). Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-12.
• Volpp K, Loewenstein G et al. (2008). Financial incentive-based approaches to weight loss. Journal of the American Medical Association, 300, 2631-2637.

Essay (100%, 3000 words).

Teaching staff will have the option of randomly reviewing 10% of the submissions via a quick oral examination online to check students' understanding.