Project description
Rethinking how policies measure and improve well-being
In the realm of policy-making, the common belief is that individuals make choices based on what benefits their welfare. This, however, ignores scenarios where beliefs are flawed, emotional aspects such as regret come into play and preferences shift over time. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the WelfareBeyondChoice project seeks to develop a tool for evaluating policies by considering the implications of erroneous beliefs on welfare, as well as the effect that the existence of alternatives has on emotions such as regret and the dynamics of changing preferences. Through experiments, economic modelling and new measurement approaches, the project will produce a practical, evidence-based toolkit that helps policymakers design policies that better reflect how people actually experience outcomes.
Objective
This MSCA fellowship develops new methods to assess whether policies truly enhance well-being, in line with the European Union’s goal of promoting “the well-being of its peoples” (Lisbon Treaty, Article 3). Standard welfare economics assumes that choices reveal what is best for individuals, yet this approach fails in three important situations: when welfare depends on beliefs that people cannot directly choose between, when the mere presence of options affects feelings such as regret or elation, and when preferences evolve over time. These gaps matter for EU policy debates on transparency, consumer protection, and long-term interventions.
The project addresses each limitation with a dedicated research package. First, it measures the welfare cost of false beliefs through incentivized experiments, where participants can reveal hidden fees to consumers, and incorporates the findings into a public-finance model to quantify the transparency-efficiency trade-off. Second, it develops tools to evaluate welfare when menus matter in risky decisions, such as insurance, combining choices with structured self-assessments of emotions to capture how unchosen options can generate regret and reduce welfare---offering evidence for debates on dark patterns and choice architecture. Third, it proposes a coherent framework for welfare under changing preferences, assuming stability at the deeper level of preferences over mental states, such as happiness, pride, and regret, while allowing the mapping from goods to feelings to evolve.
Hosted at Tilburg University’s leading behavioral economics group and CentERlab, the fellowship combines theory, laboratory experiments, and structural estimation, with targeted training in microeconometrics, research integrity, open science, and teaching. The outcome is a practical, evidence-based toolkit enabling policymakers to evaluate regulations and interventions by their impact on people’s actual welfare---not merely their observed choices.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
5037 AB Tilburg
Netherlands
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