This introductory chapter lays out the historical background of English New World colonization and sketches the argument of the book. It explains the English crown’s formal authority over colonization and introduces the principal–agent perspective as a framework to analyze the crown’s use of that authority. The chapter lays out the concept of contractual imperialism, or the early crown’s policy of early colonization embedded in letters patent to private colonizers, and of regulatory imperialism, or the later crown’s policy of regulating colonial political economies.

In this chapter we review some of the biases by health policymakers, public health decision-makers, and other experts that have emerged during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside the formidable and tireless work on the ground of thousands of doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals, the COVID-19 pandemic has documented an unprecedented series of distorted or sub-optimal decisions and behaviours by health policymakers and expert health decision-makers in countries considered to be at the forefront of public health, such as the United Kingdom and Italy, for example. Some of these biased decisions and behaviours have had dramatic effects and deserve a critical analysis under the lens of behavioural economics. In this chapter we list and describe some of the behavioural distortions that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these behavioural biases have not been previously documented, or categorised as such, or may have been discussed under different names.

This chapter presents a body of behavioural work that analyses the relationship between face mask use and social distancing. The majority of these studies does not find evidence of a negative effect of mask-wearing on distancing. This evidence, however, might not yet be definitive, as there seem to be exceptions. These exceptions are not sufficient to justify the delay in the implementation of masking policies and recommendation during the pandemic but raise interesting questions as to where this heterogeneity may come from. These insights could, in turn, extend to the general discussion on the almost fifty-year-old topic of risk compensation.

Chapter 8 adds to a clarification of the confusion about CBI by discussing the need for transparency and accountability in light of a growing – mainly political science driven – literature on the perceived democratic deficit of technocratic policy solutions. We show that this literature overlooks important aspects of CBI.

Chapter 7 takes an Olsonian perspective. We ask the question of what drove central bank balance sheet policies in democracies. This development is understood from the perspective of Mancur Olson’s ground-breaking theory of the ‘rise and decline of nations’ which accounts for the increasing difficulty to reform as distributional coalitions impose the ‘slavery of the rent-seeking society’ (as the former chief economist of the GATT, Jan Tumlir, so appropriately put it) on democratic societies. In light of these considerations, the factual degree of central bank independence might lower than it appears at first glance.

Two years after the initial outbreak in 2020, SARS-CoV-2 continues to have a disruptive impact on day-to-day life for billions of people around the world. Despite high vaccination rates, high-income countries report record rates of infection with the Omicron variant in spring 2022. Adapting to the pandemic has led to significant behaviour change, such as increased working from home, social distancing, and mask-wearing. With this, perceptions of everyday situations (e.g., taking public transport or grocery shopping) have become risky in COVID-19 times. As risk tolerance is a key component to decision-making, changes in perceived risk may alter decision-making in the (post) COVID-19 world. In this chapter we summarise findings on risk-taking in times of COVID-19, with an aim to offer insights for policy purposes in this pandemic and for future pandemic preparedness. In particular, we summarise (i) the impact of COVID-19 on individual risk tolerance; (ii) the heterogeneity of risk tolerance during times of COVID-19; (iii) their relative effects on behaviour; and (iv) any evidence for risk compensation in the context of COVID-19.

In this chapter, we examine connections between COVID-19 and climate change, the two major crises we have been living through over the past few years. How has the former affected the world’s collective response to the latter? What lessons have people learned about climate change from COVID-19, and what lessons should we (and policymakers) learn? Ultimately, research on adaptation shows that people are able to adapt rapidly and dramatically to changing circumstances. However, people underestimate their own rate of adaptation and how quickly they will learn to cope with a new situation. As a result, they will often resist change that they would end up being comfortable with. Unfortunately, policymakers are subject to the same bias. This under-appreciation of adaptation discourages policymakers from taking the types of bold initiatives that are required to deal with problems like climate change.

Chapter 5 offers a description and an interpretation of the policy responses of four leading central banks (Fed, ECB, Bank of England and Bank of Japan) to the Great Recession.

As English state capacity grew and the crown faced growing financial constraints at home, colonies became tempting targets. This chapter explores the crown’s attempts to unwind the institutions of contractual imperialism and assert unilateral, direct control over colonies. However, when the crown made these attempts, colonial institutions had taken deep root over decades. The chapter explains why the crown was unable to force its vision of government on the colonies autocratically, and instead pivoted to a negotiated model of governance: Regulatory imperialism.

In this chapter we describe the role of behavioural science in the Irish COVID-19 response. The first section describes the onset of COVID-19 in Ireland. The second section outlines the basic structure of the emergency response in Ireland and the role of behavioural science in the national emergency response team. The third section provides an account of specific contributions and capacities provided. We focus on the role of behavioural science during the initial outbreak, in particular the period from March to August 2020, during which Ireland, like many countries, sought to contain the viral spread and respond to issues arising from the fluctuation in the severity of infection exposure.