Pequenos incentivos, grandes mudanças: economia comportamental aplicada a políticas públicas

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to understand the theoretical construction of Behavioral Economics and discuss its use in the design and evaluation of public policies. It is questioned how it can contribute to making policies more effective. The hypothesis investigated is that this field of study offers a series of tools that can achieve the proposed results, at lower costs than those derived from traditional instruments. Behavioral Economics applies psychological and sociological incentives to human behavior to explain economic decision making. It uses a descriptive model that follows experiments and criticizes two important paradigms of the traditional economy: the understanding that the individual has full rationality and the opposition to any and all state intervention on the actions of individuals, as Thaler explains (2019). The contribution of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1974) was fundamental to the development of this approach and brought the economy closer to psychology. The researchers analyzed cognitive processes and defended the idea of limited rationality of humans in decision-making judgments. Thus, in confronting the theory of rational choice, as well as the views that did not admit of state paternalism, Behavioral Economics opened a new research front, with a markedly experimental characteristic, defending the idea that heuristics, biases, emotional factors, social factors and scarcity, influence how individuals make their individual choices. Given this, public policies, drawn from the observation of people's real behavior, can be more effective. Small changes in the way incentives are proposed produce better results. The randomized controlled experiment (EAC), considered the "golden rule" of Behavioral Economics, is the method used, not only for assessing the impact of government intervention, but mainly for the development of evidence-based public policies, before the cycle test, learn and test again. In this context, the dissertation concludes that this approach can contribute a lot to public policies, allowing the construction of a great learning cycle for them and for the fulfillment of citizens’ rights.