Workshop on Applying Behavioural Insights to Consumer and Competition Policy

14 April 2023 - 13:00-16:30 CET OECD Conference Centre, Paris

Competition and consumer policy share the goal of enhancing consumer welfare, by fostering markets that deliver better goods and services for consumers while empowering and protecting them from harm. Insights from behavioural science have long demonstrated that consumers are prone to a range of behavioural biases, particularly online, that may affect the way they make decisions. Examples include default bias (a tendency to remain with a default option) or myopia (a tendency to focus on the present and ignore future outcomes).

A better understanding of behavioural biases can greatly assist policy makers and enforcers in both policy areas to understand how markets actually work, improve enforcement and design effective policy interventions. Furthermore, with increased convergence in digital markets between competition and consumer policy and related areas (e.g. privacy and data governance), there is an increasing need for interdisciplinary and holistic policy perspectives to ensure that markets work well for consumers and businesses.

The OECD Committee on Consumer Policy and Competition Committee will hold a joint workshop on applying behavioural insights to competition and consumer policy on 14 April 2023 (see link to agenda below). The workshop will build on both committees’ existing work on behavioural insights (see below links to related work).

For the latest updates on the OECD Competition work, please follow us on the OECD Competition Law and Policy LinkedIn page.

See the draft agenda

Read the OECD issues paper

Consumer choosing a screen among many
©sergeyryzhov / iStock

ATTENDANCE AND CONTACT

Attendance is by invitation only.

Any questions related to the scope of the workshop should be sent to Tommaso.Majer@oecd.org and Nicholas.Mcspedden-Brown@oecd.org.

For logistics, please contact Alice.Weber@oecd.org or Rebecca.Lambert@oecd.org.

Speakers

	Mathias Cormann Bio Secretary-General, OECD		Avishalom Tor Bio Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
	Gina Cass-Gottlieb Bio Chair, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)		Zita Vasas Bio Vice President, Compass Lexicon
	Hugh Stevenson Bio Chair, OECD Committee on Consumer Policy, and Deputy Director, Office of International Affairs, US Federal Trade Commission		Inge Graef Bio Associate Professor of Competition Law, Tilburg University
	Frédéric Jenny Bio Competition Committee Chair, OECD		Edwin van Houten Bio Director of the Consumer Department, Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets
	Matthew Bennett Bio Vice President, Charles River Associates		Simone Wong Principal Economist, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
	Emanuele Ciriolo Bio Head, Competence Centre on Behavioural Insights, Joint Research Centre, European Commission		Guy Parker Bio President, International Council for Advertising Self-Regulation, and CEO, Advertising Standards Authority
	Elisabeth Costa Bio Managing Director, Behavioural Insights Team UK		Gregory Day Bio Assistant Professor of Legal Studies, University of Georgia
	Andreas Maaløe Jespersen Bio Chief Advisor/Expert, Danish Competition and Consumer Authority		Vanessa Turner Bio Senior Advisor – Competition, European Consumer Organisation (BEUC)
			Lina Khan Bio Chair, United States Federal Trade Commission