This paper describes the results of eight experiments into giving information carried out by the FCA.
Occasional Paper 23: Full disclosure (PDF)
Technical appendix: Full disclosure (PDF)
We have published this Occasional Paper alongside an Insight article - Increasing confidence: what power posing can tell us about research for regulation.
Find out more about Occasional Papers and read our disclaimer.
Summary
The FCA has been at the forefront of using behavioural science and experiments to inform regulation. Since our first field trial on customer compensation in 2013, we have published the results of experimental research in a number of consumer markets including savings accounts and structured savings products, along with car and home insurance.
This round-up paper presents a further eight experiments, comprising five field trials and three online experiments, which test the effect of interventions that draw on behavioural theory, such as increasing salience or personalisation.
We investigate diverse questions including:
- How can we design disclosure about annuities to help people get a better deal?
- How can firms improve customers’ engagement with their mortgages?
- What messages encourage customers to claim compensation?
- How can compliance and engagement amongst regulated firms be improved using communications?
While some experiments corroborate existing research or find interesting effects, others did not find any statistically significant effects. We are publishing these results, including non-significant and negative results, in the spirit of good research so that we can improve evidence, combat publication bias and make our research transparent. We also share some of the practical lessons we have learned, in the hope that others may benefit from them.
Authors
Laura Smart
The author works in the Behavioural Economics and Data Science Unit in the Strategy and Competition division of the FCA.
Researchers
Paul Adams, Matteo Aquilina, Robert Baker, Will Brambley, Alessandro Nava, Sumedha Pathak, James Ridgewell, Helena Robertson, James Shafe, Laura Smart, Dom Suckling, Roisin Wilson and Qamar Zaman.
Disclaimer
Occasional Papers contribute to the work of the FCA by providing rigorous research results and stimulating debate. While they may not necessarily represent the position of the FCA, they are one source of evidence that the FCA may use while discharging its functions and to inform its views. The FCA endeavours to ensure that research outputs are correct, through checks including independent referee reports, but the nature of such research and choice of research methods is a matter for the authors using their expert judgement. To the extent that Occasional Papers contain any errors or omissions, they should be attributed to the individual authors, rather than to the FCA.