Building better governments with behavioral science: Margarita Gómez

In today’s episode of The Decision Corner, we are joined by Margarita Gomez, the inaugural executive director of the People in Government Lab, located in the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. The People Lab is the School’s innovation-in-government project aiming to improve the motivation, responsiveness, and effectiveness of people working in government.

For reference, this episode was taped prior to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and accordingly reflects the understanding of the situation at the time.

Margarita has more than 12 years of experience working to build better governments and to design more effective public policies. Throughout her career, she has blended practice and theory, in both academia and the public sector. Previous to her current appointment, Margarita founded and led the first Behavioural Unit in Mexico and served as principal advisor to the Minister of Public Safety and Ministry of Defence in Mexico.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The motives and aspirations of Oxford University’s People in Government Lab, which Margarita currently leads.
• Margarita’s attempts to increase honesty and motivation among Mexican and Brazilian public servants.
• Risk aversion in policy development and public sector consulting.
• Strategies for enhancing the internal capacity for behavioral science in governmental institutions.
• The role of “champions”, aka powerful decision-makers who are sympathetic to, and knowledgeable about, the influence of behavioral science on their area of expertise, in implementing desired interventions.
• Arbitrating differences between academic and government metrics for a project’s success.
• Discussing the challenges of autonomy and expertise for policymaking in developing countries.