IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11863.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Meta-Meta-Analysis of Behavior Change Interventions: Two Tales of Behavior Change

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Kaiser
  • Juliane Kloidt
  • Jutta Mata
  • Ralph Hertwig

Abstract

Behavioral science interventions like incentives, nudges, and boosts are increasingly used in public policy, but their effectiveness remains debated. We conducted a meta-meta-analysis on behavior change interventions across health, finance, and sustainability outcomes. Our analysis covers 838 effects from 269 meta-analyses, encompassing 6,327 randomized controlled trials and over 9 million individuals from non-clinical populations of all ages in both developed and developing economies. Our findings tell two stories: First, extracted treatment effects are generally positive but highly variable (M = .173; SD = .195), indicating some interventions impact behavior. However, after adjusting for publication bias, the mean posterior effect pooling domains and interventions is .063 (95% credible interval .044 to .08, BF10 = 139.8) with substantial unexplained heterogeneity (τ̂ = .129). Future research requires improved reporting and deeper contextual analysis to address this heterogeneity. Even small effect sizes can yield significant impacts when scaled across populations and sustained over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Kaiser & Juliane Kloidt & Jutta Mata & Ralph Hertwig, 2025. "A Meta-Meta-Analysis of Behavior Change Interventions: Two Tales of Behavior Change," CESifo Working Paper Series 11863, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11863
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11863.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Isaiah Andrews & Maximilian Kasy, 2019. "Identification of and Correction for Publication Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2766-2794, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stefano DellaVigna & Elizabeth Linos, 2022. "RCTs to Scale: Comprehensive Evidence From Two Nudge Units," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 81-116, January.
    2. Alan Manning, 2021. "The Elusive Employment Effect of the Minimum Wage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 3-26, Winter.
    3. Gechert, Sebastian & Heimberger, Philipp, 2022. "Do corporate tax cuts boost economic growth?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    4. Mattia Filomena & Matteo Picchio, 2023. "Retirement and health outcomes in a meta‐analytical framework," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1120-1155, September.
    5. Patrick Vu, 2022. "Can the Replication Rate Tell Us About Publication Bias?," Papers 2206.15023, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    6. Chris Doucouliagos & Jakob de Haan & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2022. "What drives financial development? A Meta-regression analysis [A new database of financial reforms]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 840-868.
    7. Graham Elliott & Nikolay Kudrin & Kaspar Wüthrich, 2022. "Detecting p‐Hacking," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 887-906, March.
    8. Roman Horvath & Ali Elminejad & Tomas Havranek, 2020. "Publication and Identification Biases in Measuring the Intertemporal Substitution of Labor Supply," Working Papers IES 2020/32, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Sep 2020.
    9. repec:osf:metaar:mbvz3_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    11. Christoph Carnehl & Johannes Schneider, 2025. "A Quest for Knowledge," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 93(2), pages 623-659, March.
    12. James R. Stevenson & Karen Macours & Douglas Gollin, 2023. "The Rigor Revolution: New Standards of Evidence for Impact Assessment of International Agricultural Research," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 495-515, October.
    13. Jiří Witzany, 2021. "A Bayesian Approach to Measurement of Backtest Overfitting," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-22, January.
    14. Alexander Frankel & Maximilian Kasy, 2022. "Which Findings Should Be Published?," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 1-38, February.
    15. Maximilian Kasy & Jann Spiess, 2022. "Optimal Pre-Analysis Plans: Statistical Decisions Subject to Implementability," Papers 2208.09638, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.
    16. Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Lubica Laslopova & Olesia Zeynalova, 2020. "Skilled and Unskilled Labor Are Less Substitutable than Commonly Thought," Working Papers IES 2020/29, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Sep 2020.
    17. Philipp Heimberger, 2019. "Beeinflusst die ökonomische Globalisierung die Einkommensungleichheit? Eine Meta-Analyse," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 45(4), pages 497-529.
    18. Brodeur, Abel & Cook, Nikolai & Heyes, Anthony, 2022. "We Need to Talk about Mechanical Turk: What 22,989 Hypothesis Tests Tell us about p-Hacking and Publication Bias in Online Experiments," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1157, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Heath, Davidson & Ringgenberg, Matthew C. & Samadi, Mehrdad & Werner, Ingrid M., 2019. "Reusing Natural Experiments," Working Paper Series 2019-21, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    20. Jens Dietrichson & Morten Kjær Thomsen & Julie Kaas Seerup & Martin Williams Strandby & Bjørn Christian Arleth Viinholt & Elizabeth Bengtsen, 2022. "PROTOCOL: School‐based language, math, and reading interventions for executive functions in children and adolescents: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(3), September.
    21. Abel Brodeur & Scott Carrell & David Figlio & Lester Lusher, 2023. "Unpacking P-hacking and Publication Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(11), pages 2974-3002, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    behaviour-change; intervention; heterogeneity; boosting; nudging; publication bias; Bayesian meta-meta-analysis.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11863. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.