Predicting People

In the fourth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the currently high levels of inflation. They broadly answer three key questions: how economists measure inflation, how it is perceived by the wider population, and what is its effect on businesses?

Specifically, this episode explores the psychology of inflation using a Behavioural Science lense. Among the topics discussed are: how measures of inflation relate to price perceptions, how consumers recognise inflation via different reference prices, and how businesses can adjust their prices in a way that is acceptable to customers.

In this ninth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss algorithms and whether they are able to outperform expert advice. Their conversation draws on a variety of commercial examples and traces the development of algorithms across multiple fields.

The episode explores a couple interesting Dectech case studies, from the world of credit underwriting to football scouting. These examples illustrate the key reasons why algorithms often outperform expert predictions, as identified in existing research. Finally, they consider scenarios where expert judgment still holds value and provide insights into the future of algorithmic decision-making.

In the fifth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the new Consumer Duty rules by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which come into effect this month. They broadly answer three key questions: how Consumer Duty came about, what the psychology behind Consumer Duty is, and what this now means for the financial service industry in practice. They also give an outlook on future trends in Consumer Duty and ethics in companies, that are spreading to sectors beyond financial services.

In this eighth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss the Nudge Movement. Specifically, they explore how the rise of Nudging in Behavioural Science has led to many policy problems being framed in individual rather than systemic terms. This is known as adopting an i-frame rather than an s-frame. The approach puts the focus on an individual’s behaviour rather than the systems/rules within which they operate.

Considering an influential paper that Nick himself wrote on the topic, they discuss whether individual-level solutions like nudges have overplayed their hand. The episode references interesting case studies, from the paper and Dectech’s own research, in areas like carbon emissions and retirement savings. Nick and Henry also address what this means for not just government policy, but the commercial world around it.