This is the third in a series of four posts on insights for compliance officers from different fields of study.  The first post in the series was about lessons from psychology regarding motivation and choice, from prominent figures such as Viktor Frankl and Barry Schwartz.  Last week’s post discussed insights from self-development and coaching, including the works of people like Brene Brown and Byron Katie.  Today’s will be about insights from behavioral economics.  The fourth and final post in this series, on March 13, will focus on the application of theories of business management theories to corporate compliance programs.

Behavioral economics is a multi-disciplinary field of academic study which integrates themes from psychology, sociology, and neurology, among others, to analyze and predict economic decisions and markets behavior of individuals.  Given that behavioral economics shares so much theoretical inspiration with other areas and covers such a wide array of human behavior, it is naturally quite insightful for compliance officers.  Like compliance, behavioral economics focuses heavily on factors to decision-making and conduct.  Behavioral economics also takes great interest in risk tolerance and assessment, the management of which is also important for compliance.