The departure point of this paper is the conjecture that the standard economic explanation of corruption in terms of the principal agent-model is necessary but insufficient to understand why corruption emerges and persists over time. More precisely, this article advances the thesis that reciprocity mechanisms together with heuristics and biases play an important role in the explanation of corrupt choice behaviors. Inspired by available experimental evidence in support of our bold claim, we examine what implications the so-called “behavioral turn to corruption research” might carry for the anti-corruption agenda.  

O ponto de partida deste artigo é a conjectura de que a explicação econômica tradicional para a corrupção baseada no modelo agente-principal é necessária, porém insuficiente para compreender por que a corrupção surge e persiste ao longo do tempo. Mais precisamente, o artigo sustenta a tese de que mecanismos de reciprocidade, juntamente com heurísticas e vieses, têm papel importante na explicação de condutas corruptas. Com base nas evidências experimentais que dão sustentação à nossa conjectura ousada, examinamos as implicações da chamada “guinada comportamental” para a agenda anticorrupção.

Resumo O ponto de partida deste artigo é a conjectura de que a explicação econômica tradicional para a corrupção baseada no modelo agente-principal é necessária, porém insuficiente para compreender por que a corrupção surge e persiste ao longo do tempo. Mais precisamente, o artigo sustenta a tese de que mecanismos de reciprocidade, juntamente com heurísticas e vieses, têm papel importante na explicação de condutas corruptas. Com base nas evidências experimentais que dão sustentação à nossa conjectura ousada, examinamos as implicações da chamada “guinada comportamental” para a agenda anticorrupção.

Abstract The departure point of this paper is the conjecture that the standard economic explanation of corruption in terms of the principal agent-model is necessary but insufficient to understand why corruption emerges and persists over time. More precisely, this article advances the thesis that reciprocity mechanisms together with heuristics and biases play an important role in the explanation of corrupt choice behaviors. Inspired by available experimental evidence in support of our bold claim, we examine what implications the so-called “behavioral turn to corruption research” might carry for the anti-corruption agenda.

RESUMO Este artigo sustenta que os modelos econômicos tradicionais de corrupção, baseados em otimização de custos e benefícios esperados, são insuficientes para compreender e enfrentar a desonestidade no mundo real. Embarca numa revisão da literatura para discutir os papéis exercidos por vieses cognitivos e preferências sociais nos desvios do comportamento honesto. Discute ainda as implicações da economia comportamental para o debate sobre como combater a corrupção e promover a integridade.

ABSTRACT This paper holds that the standard economic accounts of corruption based on expected costs and benefits are insufficient to understand and to tackle dishonesty in the real world. It embarks on a survey of the literature to discuss the major roles automatic judgments and decisions, as well as cognitive biases and social preferences might play in deviations from honest behavior. The paper further discusses the implications of behavioral economics to the debate over how to fight corruption and foster integrity.

RESUMO Este artigo busca oferecer uma interpretação sobre por que insights da economia comportamental foram incorporados à agenda de pesquisa sobre o desenvolvimento econômico inspirada pelas lentes da metodologia da economia. Embarca-se em uma revisão extensa da literatura que se concentra na prática efetiva “da análise comportamental do desenvolvimento econômico e visão da economia comportamental da pobreza”. Tal agenda surgiu nos primeiros anos do século XXI para identificar e discutir algumas direções e implicações que esse movimento pode trazer para a ciência e arte da Economia.

ABSTRACT This paper aims to provide an interpretation of why behavioral economics has come into the complex field of development economics that draws on insights from methodology of economics. We engage in an extensive survey of the literature that focuses on the actual practice of “behavioral development economics and behavioral economics view of poverty” that emerged in the early years of the 21st century in order to identify and discuss some directions and implications that this movement might carry for economics science and art of Economics.

Behavioral economics has addressed interesting positive and normative questions underlying the standard rational choice theory. More recently, it suggests that, in a real world of boundedly rational agents, economists could help people to improve the quality of their choices without any harm to autonomy and freedom of choice. This paper aims to scrutinize available arguments for and against current proposals of light paternalistic interventions mainly in the domain of intertemporal choice. It argues that incorporating the notion of bounded rationality in economic analysis and empirical findings of cognitive biases and self-control problems cannot make an indisputable case for paternalism.

Este artigo busca desafiar a visão amplamente disseminada de que o uso de formulações as if pelos economistas implica uma perspectiva metodológica instrumentalista (i.e., antirrealista). Baseado em uma análise do papel das proposições as if na teorização científica, argumenta-se que elas são também compatíveis com uma postura realista. Para efetuar a tarefa citada, discute-se o que são as formulações as if e identificam-se alguns dos seus usos realistas e instrumentalistas na prática efetiva de Economia e Biologia Evolucionária. Mais fundamentalmente, o presente trabalho sugere que o as if pode receber uma interpretação realista se consistir em uma contrapartida simplificada de uma explicação que descreve explicitamente processos evolucionários que produzem padrões de comportamento no mundo econômico real.

This paper aims to challenge the widespread view that economists' usage of as if formulations implies an instrumentalist (i.e. anti-realist) methodological perspective. Based on an account of the role played by as if propositions in scientific theorizing, it argues that they are also compatible with a realist posture. To undertake the foregoing task, it scrutinizes what as if formulations amount to and goes on to identify some realist and instrumentalist uses of them in the actual practice of economics and evolutionary biology. More fundamentally, the present work puts forth the idea that as if might receive a realist interpretation if it consists of a simplified counterpart of an explanation that explicitly describes evolutionary processes that bring about patterns of behavior in the real economic world.

One of the merits of contemporary economic analysis is its capacity to offer accounts of choice behavior that dispense with details of the complex decision machinery. The starting point of this paper is the concern with the important methodological debate about whether economics might offer accurate predictions and explanations of actual behavior without any reference to psychological presuppositions. Inspired by an exercise of rational reconstruction of ideas, I aim to offer an interpretation of the process of freeing economic analysis from psychology at the end of the 19th century and the contemporary resurrection of behavioral approaches in the late 1980s.

This paper criticizes the conventional theory of choice for being grounded on a minimal set of rationality axioms. We claim that this theory does not take due account of the fact that agents are driven by motives other than the pursuit of material self-interest. Our departure point is logic of commitments and planned action, which helps us to identify some puzzles in the conventional theory of choice. As a way out, we discuss the Kantian perspective and the notions of metapreference and metaranking. We then build a model of choice which points to the possibility of a systematic treatment of higher order preferences and incommensurable objectives.