Behavioral Insights for Foresighted Public Finance

Behavioral insights are becoming part of the policy toolkit in countries around the world, and the IDB has positioned itself at the forefront of this movement in Latin America and the Caribbean. This policy brief discusses some of the reasons behind its success and serves as an encouragement for policymakers in the region to adopt some of these tools. In a region with numerous unfulfilled needs and limited resources, behavioral insights can play an important role for improving public finance in the region. Interventions leveraging behavioral insights can increase revenues by improving tax compliance and boosting tax morale. They can also improve the efficiency of public spending by encouraging preventive healthcare activities (involving vaccines, diet, exercise, etc.), promoting energy and water conservation, lowering traffic fatalities, and reducing teacher absenteeism, among other means. By surveying the evidence coming from interventions in the field in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as other parts of the world, this policy brief makes a strong case to the region to embrace behavioral insights and design behaviorally informed policies.

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Inter-American Development Bank
Other Authors:	Nina Rapoport
Language:	English
Published:	Inter-American Development Bank
Subjects:	Social Security, Public Expenditure, Public Finance, Tax Compliance, Tax Collection, Behavioral Economics, Property Tax, H54 - Infrastructures • Other Public Investment and Capital Stock, H83 - Public Administration • Public Sector Accounting and Audits, H30 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: General, H26 - Tax Evasion and Avoidance, D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving, H20 - Taxation Subsidies and Revenue: General, I18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health, H51 - Government Expenditures and Health, H55 - Social Security and Public Pensions, H52 - Government Expenditures and Education, Infrastructure;Education;health;public finance;behavioral economics;public spending;Agriculture;Social security;retirement;Tax compliance;Behavioral insights;Publicrevenue,
Online Access:	http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0002227 https://publications.iadb.org/en/behavioral-insights-foresighted-public-finance
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!