Sludge Audits

Sunstein, Cass R.

doi:10.1017/bpp.2019.32

Cited by 109 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…As scholars document how burdens affect citizens, state actors have greater opportunity and obligation to consider how to balance the merits of their actions that generate burdens with the costs those burdens create. Sunstein (, 1) has called for “sludge audits” to “catalogue the costs of sludge, and to decide when and how to reduce it.” Our analysis shows that such audits would be especially helpful in programs targeted toward citizens with lower executive functioning. Such at‐risk populations can be partially identified through objective criteria such as socioeconomic status, age, and mental and physical health diagnoses, but formal categories will be lower‐bound estimates because of the gap between actual incidence and formal diagnoses.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen‐State Interactions

Christensen

Aarøe

Bækgaard

et al. 2019

Public Administration Review

235

188

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One means by which the state reinforces inequality is by imposing administrative burdens that loom larger for citizens with lower levels of human capital. Integrating insights from various disciplines, this article focuses on one aspect of human capital: cognitive resources. The authors outline a model that explains how burdens and cognitive resources, especially executive functioning, interrelate. The article then presents illustrative examples, highlighting three common life factors-scarcity, health problems, and age-related cognitive decline. These factors create a human capital catch-22, increasing people's likelihood of needing state assistance while simultaneously undermining the cognitive resources required to negotiate the burdens they encounter while seeking such assistance. The result is to reduce access to state benefits and increase inequality. The article concludes by calling for scholars of behavioral public administration and public administration more generally to incorporate more attention to human capital into their research. Evidence for Practice• People's human capital influences how they engage with administrative processes. Groups with lower levels of human capital struggle more with administrative burdens; therefore, they are less likely to access public services. • A citizen-centered approach to public administration implies that policy makers and administrators take account of variation in human capital when making choices about policy design and implementation. • Cognitive resources, including executive functioning, are a form of human capital, which is key to citizens' ability to initiate and master state interactions. • Citizens experiencing scarcity, health problems, and cognitive decline face a catch-22: such common life factors make them more likely to need to engage with the state, but reduce their executive functioning, making them less able to deal with administrative burdens.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen‐State Interactions

Christensen

Aarøe

Bækgaard

et al. 2019

Public Administration Review

235

188

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This would prevent the ongoing trend towards more complex and potentially exploitative forms of loot box and video game monetisation design (Ballou et al, 2020;Petrovskaya & Zendle, 2021). Whilst loot boxes are not the only consumer product that has become more complex and potentially exploitative over time (Bar-Gill, 2012;Heidhues et al, 2017;Newall, 2019;Sunstein, 2020;Thaler, 2018), the digital nature of loot boxes does present unique opportunities to reduce product complexity and therefore also reduce potential harm through ethical design.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probability disclosures are not enough: Reducing loot box reward complexity as a part of ethical video game design

Xiao¹,

Pws²

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Loot boxes in video games provide randomised rewards that bear structural similarities to gambling. Current loot box consumer protection measures, such as requiring probability disclosures, have been inspired by similar approaches in gambling. However, current loot box rewards are too complex for consumers to be meaningfully protected by probability disclosures alone. But as digital goods, loot boxes can be redesigned in more ethical ways. Four reductions to loot box reward complexity are proposed: capping the maximum number of loot boxes per game and potential rewards per loot box, equalising ‘winning’ probabilities across rewards, and implementing ‘exhaustible’ loot boxes.

show abstract

“…When public housing residents face an undue burden to dispose of their trash, misguided administrative policy essentially serves as a form of "sludge" (Thaler, 2018). In this way, this field experiment and its formative work served as a "Sludge Audit" for NYCHA, as advocated by Sunstein (Sunstein, 2020), to identify the burdens on residents and to demonstrate that a simple redesign of choice architecture can create real behavioral change. Previously, residents did not have a clear option for proper disposal of medium sized household trash; new structures and resources to reduce the compliance burden on residents, accompanied with guidance to reduce learning costs, subsequently reduced problem behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing to minimize the administrative burden of trash disposal: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in New York City public housing

Flanagan

Saho

Nagulapally

et al. 2021

JBPA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is the largest public housing manager in North America. One widespread concern for residents and staff is the improper disposal of household trash and litter on NYCHA grounds. Here we present the co-produced service of trash disposal through the lens of administrative burden; official policy is unclear for residents and options are confusing or inconvenient, resulting in significant learning, compliance, and psychological costs. To reduce this burden, we redesigned the trash disposal infrastructure – new large containers placed at convenient locations – and introduced a package of indoor and outdoor posters communicating the new policy. 53 NYCHA developments, randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, were broken into 79 smaller observation sites. Weekly counts of visible trash bags and litter were collected pre-intervention and post-intervention, over a period of 21 weeks. The average number of household trash bags decreased by 25% (p<.05) in treatment sites after the intervention, and the average amount of litter decreased by 16% (p<.05). Providing easier access to disposal infrastructure, complemented by community-oriented and instructional communications, significantly reduced visible trash on NYCHA grounds, demonstrating that new structures and resources can effectively reduce burdens and change behavior.

show abstract

Sludge Audits

Cited by 109 publications

References 37 publications

Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen‐State Interactions

Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen‐State Interactions

Probability disclosures are not enough: Reducing loot box reward complexity as a part of ethical video game design

Designing to minimize the administrative burden of trash disposal: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in New York City public housing

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About