Behavioural insights in poverty reduction policies

"This Policy Research Brief presents some elements that should be carefully considered in the design of policies and programmes to overcome poverty, based on evidence from the field of behavioural economics. A growing number of international experiences point to the fact that, in many situations, government policies and programmes suffer from compromised results and wasted resources due to an error that is entirely avoidable nowadays: the fundamental misunderstanding of how people?both those involved in the design and implementation of policies and programmes and, especially, their end users? perceive the individual components of these programmes and policies and make their decisions. Regarding policies geared towards overcoming poverty, such a misunderstanding can have disastrous results when considering the lost opportunities for the promotion of the welfare and autonomy of potential beneficiaries". (?)