Behavioral Interventions to Promote Social Mobility

With the support of the Common Cents Lab at Duke University, the Social Policy Institute collaborates with organizations across sectors to implement behavioral economic interventions that aim to improve the financial wellbeing of individuals. Whether it is increasing the amount that families save for their child’s education or optimizing how households use a windfall of cash to decrease debt, the key elements are low-touch scalable interventions based on behavioral science.

Evaluating programs created by community organizations

Each behavioral intervention is deployed within an organization that touches some area of household finance, from credit unions to fintech apps to community organizations. We work closely with these organizations to co-design an intervention that is meaningful to their mission, informed by behavioral economics, and reduces both financial and personal obstacles for those involved. We work alongside the organization to implement the intervention with an eye for scalability and ease of execution and use rigorous quantitative methods to evaluate the impact. To date SPI has partnered with 8 organizations to execute 10+ targeted interventions, spanning an average of 4 months from start to end.

This work builds upon our financial security research including Refund to Savings and our health and financial wellness initiatives.