Behavioural Insights Team

What is the Behavioural Insights Team?

The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), often called the Nudge Unit, is a research and innovation consultancy that applies behavioral science and evaluates interventions. Its official history traces its origin to a UK government team established in 2010. BIT became a separate company in 2014 and was acquired by Nesta in 2021. It is now part of the Nesta Group.

What does BIT do?

Its work includes designing and testing changes to public services and other programs. The team’s history describes trials concerning tax payment, employment, and antibiotic prescribing. Randomized controlled trials compare outcomes under different conditions instead of assuming a plausible idea will work.

What field trials show about nudge effectiveness

DellaVigna and Linos (2022) analyzed 126 randomized trials from two nudge units, including BIT North America. The pooled average effect was 1.4 percentage points, compared with 8.7 percentage points in their academic-study comparison.

The result is much less impressive than the academic average. It is a pooled estimate from both units, measured in percentage points, and the samples contain different interventions. It does not show that every BIT project is ineffective. The practical question is whether a particular effect justifies its cost and compares favorably with other options.

This site discusses implications in The Death of Behavioral Economics and Bad News for Nudges. The criticism in Bad News for Nudges is direct: weak average field results and publication bias undermine promises of easy, general behavior change. Hreha argues for understanding the specific people and problem instead of starting with standardized nudges.