I think the bigger problem is when politicians blame each other for what happens to the economy at all... For example, the coalition in the UK is very fond of

I think the bigger problem is when politicians blame each other for what happens to the economy at all... For example, the coalition in the UK is very fond of blaming the economic crisis on the previous government/ in particular the prime minister Gordon Brown, who was chancellor (finance minister) for many years before that. The problem is that they confuse the blame - arguably, he might be partially responsible for loosening the regulation that allowed mortgages to get out of control, but the new government blames his imprudent spending for the crash - or at least they imply is when they say the solution is to balance the books, whatever the human cost (their cuts are extremely hard on people with disabilities - there are stories of people with cancer/heart disease being ordered back to work, and occasionally dying of shock when they find out. The assessments are carried out by random company staff rather than medics.) They are also now starting to take the credit for the extremely tentative recovery - which will, if this lack of confidence holds, come back to bite them on the arse sometime soon. If not, it will bite them in 8-10 years when the next crash happens. I do agree, though, that the levers they had could have an effect if they overuse them - but maybe that would be rather drastic and unpredictable. I think better way to influence behaviour (as I tried to allude to in GP comment) might be to change laws and regulations - this way you can target much more specific aspects of the way micro interactions work, and (subject to the usual unexpected economic hackery) would have a more predictable effect. Maybe.