Behavioral public entrepreneurship:: Institutional innovation and citizen participation from the perspective of behavioral economics

Abstract

This paper examines the transition from traditional models of citizen participation to a logic of public entrepreneurship, understood as the State's capacity to act proactively, innovatively, and experimentally in the face of social challenges. From a behavioral economics perspective, it argues that subnational governments can play a central role in redesigning the interactions between citizens and institutions, generating environments that facilitate collective action and reduce the cognitive frictions that have historically limited participation. Based on a study of the experience of the Decentralized Autonomous Provincial Government of Carchi, the chapter analyzes how the adoption of technological and methodological tools can constitute an incipient form of behavioral public entrepreneurship by designing policies that recognize both citizen and institutional biases, incentives, and dismotivations.