Review Essay on Charles F. Manski's Public Policy in an Uncertain World: Analysis and Decisions

2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 799-804
Author(s):  
John Geweke
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Economics Profession ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Future Policy ◽  
Policy Setting

Public policy setting often involves quantitative choices with quantitative outcomes. Yet unqualified statements about the precise consequences of alternative choices characterize much of the policy analysis bearing on these decisions. Public Policy in an Uncertain World: Analysis and Decisions by Charles F. Manski characterizes and richly illustrates the nature of this unwarranted certitude. It details specific constructive alternatives on which the economics profession has achieved varying degrees of consensus. Those in our profession charged with the education of future policy analysts should consider using it and how to round out its presentation of decision making from their own perspective. (JEL D02, D04, D80, E61)

Revisiting Richard Simeon's “Studying Public Policy”

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Skogstad ◽  
Linda A. White
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Future Policy ◽  
Policy Prescription

AbstractThe articles in this symposium reflect on Richard Simeon's article, “Studying Public Policy,” published forty years ago in this journal. In this introduction, we review these articles’ contribution to three themes in “Studying Public Policy”: first, the goal of the study of public policy should be policy analysis and explanation, not policy prescription; second, the analysis of public policy outcomes requires a holistic and contextually situated analytical framework; and third, building theory requires methods of comparative analysis, not single case studies. We also propose items for a future policy studies agenda.

Does Policy Analysis Matter?

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Key Indicator ◽  
Professional Class ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Regulatory Bodies

How well can democratic decision making incorporate the knowledge and expertise generated by public policy analysts? This book examines the historical development of policy analysis (a new professional class of advisors that began developing during the 1950s in the United States), as well as its use in legislative and regulatory bodies and in the federal executive branch. The chapters show that policy-analytic expertise effectively improves governmental services only when it complements democratic decision making. When successful, policy analysis fosters valuable new ideas, better use of evidence, and greater transparency in decision processes. The book concludes by assessing the development and impact of the policy-analytic profession and suggests that the growth in the voluntary employment of analysts not only by governments of all types as well as private sector and nonprofit agencies is a key indicator of the profession's effectiveness and value.

Policy analysis in political parties

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irma Mendez de Hoyos
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Party Manifestos

This chapter analyses the extent to which Mexican political parties have evolved and developed competence for policy analysis, offer policy options to party candidates during campaigns and carry out research on public policy to support the decision making process once in government. The main argument is that Mexican political parties are seldom accountable and transparent, and it is not clear which are the incentives to develop policy analysis and research capabilities to compete on the basis of policy choices, given the extended clientelistic network used to gain votes. The analysis is based on three basic sources of information: political parties’ official documents regarding their policy analysis centers (think tanks), party manifestos for the 2006 and 2012 presidential elections and some interviews.

scholarly journals Putting Distribution First

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hockett
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
The Many

AbstractIt is common for normative legal theorists, economists and other policy analysts to conduct and communicate their work mainly in maximizing terms. They take the maximization of welfare, for example, or of wealth or utility, to be primary objectives of legislation and public policy. Few if any of these theorists seem to notice, however, that any time we speak explicitly of maximizing one thing, we speak implicitly of distributing other things and of equalizing yet other things. Fewer still seem to recognize that we effectivelyTo attend systematically to this form of inter-translatability, with a view in particular to that which maximization formulations latently prescribe that we distribute and equalize, might be called “putting distribution first.” It is explicitly to recognize the fact that all law and policy are implicitly as equalizing and citizen-defining as they are aggregative and maximizing, and to trace the many salient consequences that stem from this fact. It is likewise to recognize that all law and policy treat us as equals in some respects and as non-equals in other respects. Putting distribution first by attending explicitly to these “respects” yields greater transparency about how well or poorly our laws and policies manage to identify, count, and treat us as equals in theThis Article works to lay out with care how to put distribution first in normative legal and policy analysis. The payoffs include both a workable method by which to test proposed maximization norms systematically for their normative propriety, and an attractive distributive ethic that can serve as a workable normative touchstone for legal and policy analysis. Indeed, the Article concludes, much — though not yet quite all — of our law can illuminatingly be interpreted as giving inchoate expression to just such an ethic.

Veto Player Approaches in Foreign Policy Analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Oppermann ◽  
Klaus Brummer
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Veto Players ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
Veto Player ◽  
Veto Points

The main contribution of veto player approaches in Comparative Politics has been to the study of policy stability and change. Specifically, the argument is that the possibility and conditions for policy change in a given polity and issue area depend on the configuration of veto players and veto points. Most notably, veto player approaches have introduced a general conceptual tool kit that has facilitated the comparative analysis of the dynamics and obstacles of policy change across (democratic and non-democratic) regime types and public policy areas. However, in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), references to veto players and veto points tend to be hardly systematic and are mainly used to highlight domestic constraints on preference formation, decision-making, or responses to international crises. Hence, the theoretical and empirical potential of veto player approaches for FPA has not yet been systematically explored. Against this background, the article makes the case that “taking veto players seriously” has a lot to offer to the study of foreign policy. While there are differences between applying veto player approaches in public policy and in FPA (e.g., with respect to the more informal process of foreign policy decision-making or the larger policy discretion of the agenda setter in foreign policy), those differences must not be overdone. Indeed, they point to certain shifts in emphasis and specific methodological challenges for veto player studies in foreign policy, but do not call into question the basic explanatory logic of veto player approaches or their transferability from one field to the other. What is more, the article shows that multiple links between veto player approaches and FPA theories can be established. Generally speaking, veto player approaches have immense potential in reinvigorating comparative foreign policy analysis. More specifically, they can be linked up to FPA works on the role of parliaments, coalitions, or leadership styles as well as on those discussing change, effectiveness, or fiascos in foreign policy.

scholarly journals The Demand for Economic Policy Analysis: Is Anyone Listening?

2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra S. Batie
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Applied Economics ◽  
Agricultural Economics ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Economics Profession

Economic policy analysis is extremely important for the relevancy of the agricultural economics profession, as applied economics is our professional niche. Economic policy analysis, however, as a public decision-support tool, is a challenging endeavor that is difficult to do well. Furthermore, if analysis is to be an input into public policy formulation and implementation, it is not sufficient for applied economists to merely supply high quality economic policy analysis; there must also be a demand for it. As a profession, applied economists appear to pay more attention to the supply of policy analysis, with less consideration of who wants and will use our analysis, or how they will come to know it.

scholarly journals Putting Distribution First

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Hockett
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Social Aggregation ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Right ◽  
In Virtue Of

It is common for normative legal theorists, economists and other policy analysts to conduct and communicate their work mainly in maximizing terms. They take the maximization of welfare, for example, or of wealth or utility, to be primary objectives of legislation and public policy. Few if any of these theorists seem to notice, however, that any time we speak explicitly of maximizing one thing, we speak implicitly of distributing other things and of equalizing yet other things. Fewer still seem to recognize that we effectively define ourselves by reference to that which we distribute and equalize. For it is in virtue of that which we distribute and equalize that our policy formulations treat us as politically “counting” or “mattering” for purposes of social aggregation and maximization.To attend systematically to this form of inter-translatability, with a view in particular to that which maximization formulations latently prescribe that we distribute and equalize, might be called “putting distribution first.” It is explicitly to recognize the fact that all law and policy are implicitly as equalizing and citizen-defining as they are aggregative and maximizing, and to trace the many salient consequences that stem from this fact. It is likewise to recognize that all law and policy treat us as equals in some respects and as non-equals in other respects. Putting distribution first by attending explicitly to these “respects” yields greater transparency about how well or poorly our laws and policies manage to identify, count, and treat us as equals in the right respects.This Article works to lay out with care how to put distribution first in normative legal and policy analysis. The payoffs include both a workable method by which to test proposed maximization norms systematically for their normative propriety, and an attractive distributive ethic that can serve as a workable normative touchstone for legal and policy analysis. Indeed, the Article concludes, much — though not yet quite all — of our law can illuminatingly be interpreted as giving inchoate expression to just such an ethic.

A CAS Approach to Public Policy Decision Making

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenda H. Eoyang ◽  
Lois Yellowthunder ◽  
Vic Ward
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Policy Decision Making
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