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EAST in Spanish and our work in Latin America

Blog 13th Feb 2018

When we talk about our work in the United Kingdom, we are often asked the question: Will our approach also work in other countries?

Over the past four years we have been collaborating with governments in Latin America applying our methodology, and we found that the answer is: Yes!

In our first project in Guatemala in 2014, for example, we evaluated the impact of sending taxpayers a letter designed with findings from the behavioral sciences. The most effective version of the letter increased the payment of taxes by 43%. This effect, also persisted 12 months after the intervention.

Collaborating with the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, we have now also successfully applied our EAST methodological framework to answer questions such as:

  • How can we encourage teacher attendance?
  • How can we encourage companies to formalize and comply with their tax obligations?
  • How can we encourage parental involvement in monitoring educational services?

Through a series of blogs over the coming weeks we will be sharing some of our results from the region.

We are pleased to begin this series with the publication of the Spanish translation of our main EAST methodological framework: Four simple ways to apply the behavioral sciences.

 

EAST compiles decades of academic literature and our experience applying the behavioural sciences to public policy. EAST is a mnemonic composed of the words Easy, Attractive, Social and timely.

A fundamental part of our work in the Latin American region, has been to development the skills of our partner governments. In addition to EAST, we have also translated our EAST cards to facilitate workshops in Spanish, which will soon be on sale. In the coming months we will also be publishing a series of further BIT publications documents in Spanish.

We hope that those responsible for public policy in Latin America will find in EAST a simple and practical tool to make public policies more effective.

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