Behavioral Public Performance

How People Make Sense of Government Metrics

Oliver James author Gregg G Van Ryzin author Donald P Moynihan author Asmus Leth Olsen author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:25th Jun '20

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Behavioral Public Performance cover

This Element introduces a new approach in the measurement and reporting of government performance - behavioral public performance.

A revolution in the measurement and reporting of government performance through the use of published metrics, rankings and reports has swept the globe at all levels of government. Performance metrics now inform important decisions by politicians, public managers and citizens. However, this performance movement has neglected a second revolution in behavioral science that has revealed cognitive limitations and biases in people's identification, perception, understanding and use of information. This Element introduces a new approach - behavioral public performance - that connects these two revolutions. Drawing especially on evidence from experiments, this approach examines the influence of characteristics of numbers, subtle framing of information, choice of benchmarks or comparisons, human motivation and information sources. These factors combine with the characteristics of information users and the political context to shape perceptions, judgment and decisions. Behavioral public performance suggests lessons to improve design and use of performance metrics in public management and democratic accountability.

ISBN: 9781108708074

Dimensions: 228mm x 153mm x 7mm

Weight: 167g

75 pages