The article presents the results of empirical research on the general population’s attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccination policy in the Republic of Serbia. The research aims to examine if and to what extent the respondents were vaccinated against COVID-19, their attitudes towards the vaccination policy, and, especially, why they did not get vaccinated or were hesitant. The research was conducted on a sample of the general population (n = 501) by distributing a specially designed questionnaire comprising twelve open and closed questions. The starting hypothesis was that there was significant resistance to vaccination and that respondents were reluctant to get vaccinated due to distrust not only of the COVID-19 vaccines but also of the Serbian health authorities and the public vaccination policy. The findings confirm this hypothesis and reveal specific reasons for resistance and hesitancy, including concerns about the vaccine’s safety, side effects, and insufficiently tested vaccines. A large number of respondents disclosed distrust in the health authorities and noted that they were not prone to changing their minds. The authors explain these reasons by numerous cognitive biases. The conclusion provides an overview of specific behavioral measures for improving the effectiveness of the vaccination policy in Serbia.
In this paper, the authors provide a precise terminological demarcation of the following behavioral concepts: “nudge”, “shove”, and “budge”. Based on these concepts and three defined criteria (freedom/coercion, internalities/externalities, and behavioral insights), the authors explain various behavioral public policies and their practical implications: 1) the behavioral public policy of libertarian-paternalistic orientation (the “nudge policy”); 2) the policy of coercive paternalism; and 3) the behavioral regulation of externalities. Then, the authors provide a terminological distinction between the concept of “sludge” and “nudge”, and discuss their potential misuses. Finally, based on the level of “frictions”, the authors distinguish between the concepts of “administrative burden” and “sludge”, as well as the types of public policies that are recommended for their reduction, particularly “sludge audits”. The conclusion is that all these public policies are very close, slightly different in terms of the subject matter of regulation and the intensity of encroachment on the freedoms of individuals, but that they all have a common root in behavioral insights.
The subject of this paper is the contrast effect in negotiations from the behavioral economics perspective. We conducted an experimental study using a "divorce litigation game" with complete information about payoffs aimed at testing whether participants are prone to context-dependent decisions. The sample was created by 100 law students from the Faculty of Law of the University of Niš. In a "between subjects" design 100 different participants were tested in the control and treatment group. The main finding is that there is a statistically significant difference between the two groups, thus confirming the presence of the contrast effect. The study opens the door to further real experiments with an emphasis on other subjects, such as lawyers, checking if they are so "rational"
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