TechREG® Chronicle – Behavioral Economics

Dear Readers,

Behavioral economics has increasingly become a key part of the toolkit of many policymakers and regulators, with applications across a range of policy fields. 

Amelia Fletcher opens by discussing the EU Digital Markets Act (“DMA”), which contains several provisions which reflect important behavioral insights, and in particular the importance of choice architecture for end user decision-making. This article discusses three roles played by such insights. First, several DMA obligations address conduct whose anticompetitive effects arise from the interlinkage between choice architecture and end user behavior. Second, certain DMA obligations more explicitly cover the choice architecture facing users. Third, the heavy emphasis on effectiveness within the DMA creates a potential role for behavioral insights.

Ravi Dutta-Powell discusses how many technology firms also use behavioral economics concepts extensively – however, there has been relatively little application in the field of technology regulation. This article explains what behavioral economics is and how it can be applied to issues in the technology space, and highlights some of the nascent work by regulators to tackle technology-related behavioral issues.

Avishalom Tor discusses how digital nudges — that is, significantly behavioral interventions that use software and its user-interface design elements — are an increasingly pervasive feature of online environments that can shape