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Author Weyland, Kurt Gerhard.

Title Bounded rationality and policy diffusion : social sector reform in Latin America / Kurt Weyland
Published Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©2006

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 297 pages)
Contents The puzzle of policy diffusion -- Towards a new theory of policy diffusion -- External pressures and international norms in pension Reform -- Cognitive heuristics in the diffusion of pension reform -- External pressures and international norms in health reform -- Cognitive heuristics in the diffusion of health reform -- Bounded rationality in the era of globalization
Summary Why do very different countries often emulate the same policy model? Two years after Ronald Reagan's income-tax simplification of 1986, Brazil adopted a similar reform even though it threatened to exacerbate income disparity and jeopardize state revenues. And Chile's pension privatization of the early 1980s has spread throughout Latin America and beyond even though many poor countries that have privatized their social security systems, including Bolivia and El Salvador, lack some of the preconditions necessary to do so successfully. In a major step beyond conventional rational-choice accounts of policy decision-making, this book demonstrates that bounded rationality drives the spread of innovations across countries. When seeking solutions to domestic problems, decision-makers often consider foreign models, sometimes promoted by development institutions like the World Bank. But, as Kurt Weyland argues, policymakers apply inferential shortcuts at the risk of distortions and biases. Through an analysis of pension and health reform in Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Peru, Weyland demonstrates that decision-makers are captivated by neat, bold, cognitively available models. And rather than thoroughly assessing the costs and benefits of external models, they draw excessively firm conclusions from limited data and overextrapolate from spurts of success or failure. Indications of initial success can thus trigger an upsurge of policy diffusion. --From publisher's description
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-281) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
Print version record
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Decision making -- Latin America -- Case studies
Policy sciences.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Services & Welfare.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Human Services.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Globalization.
Decision making
Policy sciences
Social policy
Sozialreform
Sozialpolitik
Sociale hervormingen.
Beleidsvorming.
Besluitvorming.
Buitenlandse invloeden.
SUBJECT Latin America -- Social policy -- Case studies
Subject Latin America
Lateinamerika
Latijns-Amerika.
Genre/Form Case studies
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781400828067
1400828066
1282086766
9781282086760
9786612086762
6612086769
Other Titles Social sector reform in Latin America