Giving Policy Advice Research Articles

What does international evidence tell us about the health of people with childhood social care (CSC) experiences?

Abstract International research into the health of people with childhood social care (CSC) experiences has found evidence of worse mental health and emotional-behavioural wellbeing, higher rates of substance use, neurodevelopmental conditions, and avoidable mortality. Lower vaccination rates and worse dental health among those in care has also been reported in few countries. However, research results have been more mixed with regard to some physical health conditions, with higher prevalence of asthma and respiratory ill health among foster children reported in the US but no obvious differences found in the UK. Are there countries where these inequalities are less pronounced, and can we draw such conclusions based on available evidence? When making international comparisons or aiming to give policy advice, we also need to consider the quality of our evidence. Has this been based on small sample sizes or without comparison to other children and adjusting for relevant (socioeconomic) confounders? Most of our current knowledge is also cross-sectional and we do not know if some health conditions precede entry to care and may even be risk-factors for entering social care. Recent longitudinal and cross-sectoral data linkage programmes in many nations (Australia, UK, Canada) have a potential to change this and provide a foundation for evidence-based recommendations for policy and practice.

The Honest Broker versus the Epistocrat: Attenuating Distrust in Science by Disentangling Science from Politics

ABSTRACT People’s trust in science is generally high. Yet in public policy disputes invoking scientific issues, people’s trust in science is typically polarized, aligned with their political preferences. Theorists of science and democracy have reasoned that a polarization of trust in scientific information could be mitigated by clearly disentangling scientific claims from political ones. We tested this proposition experimentally in three German public policy disputes: a) school closures versus openings during the COVID-19 pandemic, b) a ban on versus a continuation of domestic air traffic in view of climate change, and c) the shooting of wolves in residential areas or their protection. In each case study, we exposed participants to one of four versions of a news item citing a scientist reporting their research and giving policy advice. The scientist’s quotes differed with regard to the direction and style of their policy advice. As an epistocrat, the scientist blurs the distinction between scientific and political claims, purporting to “prove” a policy and thereby precluding a societal debate over values and policy priorities. As an honest broker, the scientist distinguishes between scientific and political claims, presenting a policy option while acknowledging the limitations of their disciplinary scientific perspective of a broader societal problem. We find that public policy advice in the style of an honest broker versus that of an epistocrat can attenuate political polarization of trust in scientists and scientific findings by enhancing trust primarily among the most politically challenged.

German Ordoliberalism and Value Freedom: The Case of Walter Eucken

AbstractWalter Eucken (1891–1950), the founder of German ordoliberalism, is best known for his work on economic policy. According to the orthodox view, giving policy advice involves not only technical expertise but also judgments of value. Against this background, the present article investigates Eucken's stance on the principle of value freedom, that is, the claim that positive and normative statements should be kept separate. While Eucken defended the notion of scientific objectivity in his earlier writings, he later distanced himself from the principle of value freedom as formulated by Max Weber. This article maintains that a closer reading of Eucken and Weber reveals the similarity of their positions. Thus, Eucken should be seen as a proponent of the principle of value freedom. At the same time, his treatment of the subject suggests that his (implicit) model of policymaking is incomplete because it does not specify the ultimate source of value.

The life and works of Domenico Mario Nuti, 1937–2020: An appreciation

AbstractIt is challenging to provide an encompassing portrait of Mario Nuti's life and works: he was an exceptional man, who made significant intellectual contributions across a wide range of fields, as well as inspiring generations of students, colleagues and the profession in general, for more than fifty years. A brilliant debater and controversialist, he was equally at home in economic theory and in giving policy advice, and over the decades he had made significant contributions to many branches of the discipline. In this memorial article, we try to give a flavour of the man and his work, hopefully reminding the conoscenti of Mario's perceptive and original work, while introducing a new generation of scholars to his distinctive take on the field of economics.

Policy recommendations of international bureaucracies: the importance of country-specificity

Many international bureaucracies give policy advice to national administrative units. Why is the advice given by some international bureaucracies more influential than the recommendations of others? We argue that targeting advice to member states through national embeddedness and country-tailored research increases the influence of policy advice. Subsequently, we test how these characteristics shape the relative influence of 15 international bureaucracies’ advice in four financial policy areas through a global survey of national administrations from more than 80 countries. Our findings support arguments that global blueprints need to be adapted and translated to become meaningful for country-level work.Points for practitionersNational administrations are advised by an increasing number of international bureaucracies, and they cannot listen to all of this advice. Whereas some international bureaucracies give ‘one-size-fits-all’ recommendations to rather diverse countries, others cater their recommendations to the national audience. Investigating financial policy recommendations, we find that national embeddedness and country-tailored advice render international bureaucracies more influential.

Bridging the gap using energy services: Demonstrating a novel framework for soft linking top-down and bottom-up models

Giving policy advice related to climate mitigation requires insights that take both sectoral and technology effects (and their interactions) into account. This paper develops a novel soft-linking method for bridging the gap between sectoral top-down and technology rich bottom-up models. A unique feature of the approach is the explicit modelling of energy service demand in the top-down model, which creates a direct correspondence to the energy service production in the bottom-up model. This correspondence allows us, unlike previous work, to capture the macroeconomic impact of energy system investment flows. The paper illustrates the full-scale application of the method in the Danish IntERACT model, considering the unilateral introduction of coal carbon capture and storage in the Danish concrete sector. The policy leads to a reduction in the Danish concrete production, and in turn, a carbon leakage effect of 88%. Results also underscores the importance of accounting for the macroeconomic impact of energy system investment flows, as this is the source of approximately half of the policy-induced reduction in macroeconomic activity.

Investigating biofuels through network analysis

Biofuel policies are motivated by a plethora of political concerns related to energy security, environmental damages, and support of the agricultural sector. In response to this, much scientific work has chiefly focussed on analysing the biofuel domain and on giving policy advice and recommendations. Although innovation has been acknowledged as one of the key factors in sustainable and cost-effective biofuel development, there is an urgent need to investigate technological trajectories in the biofuel sector by starting from consistent data and appropriate methodological tools. To do so, this work proposes a procedure to select patent data unequivocally related to the investigated sector, it uses co-occurrence of technological terms to compute patent similarity and highlights content and interdependencies of biofuels technological trajectories by revealing hidden topics from unstructured patent text fields. The analysis suggests that there is a breaking trend towards modern generation biofuels and that innovators seem to focus increasingly on the ability of alternative energy sources to adapt to the transport/industrial sector.

Global Opportunities for Small/Medium Enterprises in emobility (GO4SEM)

Europe has successfully extended its competencies in key enabling technologies for electric mobility in recent years, especially in the field of information and communication technologies, components and systems (ICT). Small and medium size companies (SMEs) have played a crucial role as sources of creativity at all stages of the supply chain. Given the new supply chains for e-mobility being established worldwide, many potential target markets are located outside of Europe, e.g. in highly innovative regions such as the United States, Japan and South Korea or in emerging markets like China and India. In light of this situation, “Global Opportunities for Small and Medium Size Companies in Electric Mobility” (GO4SEM), coordinated by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA), is aimed at giving policy advice to sustain and enhance the successful access of European SME’s in supply chains in the abovementioned global markets. For this purpose the GO4SEM consortium (consisting of SMEs and regional clusters, Tier-1 automotive suppliers, and research institutions from all around Europe) intends to spread awareness of international market developments and technological trends in the electric mobility context, triggering an engagement of European SMEs in global FEV value chains by indicating potential and to show opportunities for bringing in expert knowledge. Furthermore, recommendations on standardization, education, and research matters are formulated. In a broader sense, the project will support to strengthen the global competitiveness of the European industry being active in the domain of electric mobility by linking the relevant stakeholders, preparing them for and increasing the awareness of the opportunities and challenges of worldwide developments. This contribution will present the output of the first term of the project. Firstly, in terms of mapping the global e-mobility supply chains and identifying possible entry points considering the above-mentioned target markets.

Improve Yourself; Not the World

This essay questions the predominant assumption within legal academia that the goal of scholarship should be to give policy advice. We do not make the obvious point that it is questionable whether legislatures care about what law professors think. Rather, we claim that policy suggestions fall within what Jacques Lacan called the “discourse of the university.” The terminology reflects not a normative judgment that professors should speak it, but an empirical observation that they all too often do speak it.The discourse of the university is expertise. It is not a true critical discourse, but a discourse of power because it is an attempt to make others act in a preferred way. It serves, often inadvertently, as an adjunct to the more obvious exercise of power called the “discourse of the master,” which is roughly equivalent to Hart’s concept of law. The master’s voice, like positive law, is to be obeyed not because it is moral, but merely because it is recognized as authoritative. By seeking to justify legal rules, the discourse of the university provides the missing rationalization for the master, thereby strengthening its reign. That is, the master tells you what to do; the university tries to convince you why you should do it. The two power discourses are to be contrasted to two critical discourses of the analyst and the hysteric. If the power discourses are those of the governor, the critical discourses are those of the governed: the subjects subjected to law. The analyst’s discourse is that of interpretation and counseling. The hysteric’s is the discourse of challenge. We argue that not only should they be the predominant discourses of practice, but also of theoretical and doctrinal scholarship.

Different roles of electromagnetic field experts when giving policy advice: an expert consultation.

BackgroundThe overall evidence for adverse health effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF) at levels of exposure normally experienced by the public is generally considered weak. However, whether long-term health effects arise remains uncertain and scientific policy advice is therefore given against a background of uncertainty. Several theories exist about different roles that experts may take when they provide advice on complex issues such as EMF. To provide empirical evidence for these theories, we conducted an expert consultation with as main research question: What are the different roles of EMF experts when they provide policy advice?MethodsQ methodology was used to empirically test theoretical notions on the existence and determinants of different expert roles and to analyze which roles actually play out in the domain of EMF. Experts were selected based on a structured nominee process. In total 32 international EMF experts participated. Responses were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis and for the open questions we used Atlas.ti.ResultsFour expert roles were found. Most striking differences between the four roles are whether experts consider current EMF policies adequate or not, whether additional –precautionary– measures are needed, and how experts view their position vis-à-vis policymakers and/or other stakeholders.ConclusionThis empirical study provides support for the so far mainly theoretical debate about the existence of different roles of experts when they give policy advice. The experts’ assessment of the degree of uncertainty of the issue turned out to be highly associated with their role. We argue that part of the controversy that exists in the debate regarding scientific policy advice on EMF is about different values and roles.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1476-069X-14-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Ecosystems functions and genetic diversity: TEEB raises challenges for the economics discipline

The prime product of the international TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) project is the book, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecological and Economic Foundations. This article critically assesses the content of this book. Both global warming and biodiversity loss raise comparable economic issues because both threaten the sustainability of economic growth and human well-being. Therefore, it is not surprising that the TEEB project was motivated by the Stern Review of Climate Change. After outlining the genesis of the TEEB project and its objectives, this article examines its analysis of the economics of ecosystems. The project shows that the total economic value of some natural ecosystems is very high in some places (higher than the uniformed might imagine), but this only creates awareness of their potential absolute value. It does not indicate circumstances in which hominid transformation of these systems to alternative systems would increase or reduce economic benefits. The TEEB report considers ecosystems and biodiversity to be natural capital. This is too narrow a view because some human produced ecosystems and genetic material are valuable forms of capital, and the economics of changes and trade-offs in the composition of the genetic stock needs to be analysed. This is not considered in the TEEB findings. A conceptual model of genetic resources is provided in this article which might enable the economic analysis of genetic diversity to be extended. In order to rectify economic failures, the TEEB report seems to favour payments for ecosystem services (PES) but does not give enough attention to their drawbacks and alternatives. Political and institutional constraints on implementing economic policies also deserve more attention than given in TEEB. In general, economists need to give greater attention to interdisciplinary perspectives in formulating theories and in giving policy advice. However, academia currently provides little incentive for such an approach.

Evidence-based policy: What sort of evidence do governments need?

AbstractVery few would dispute the proposition that evidence about the effects of different policy options should inform policy decisions. However, there is less agreement on the nature of the evidence needed. In addition, there may be problems in evaluating that evidence. This is particularly the case when experts offer conflicting advice. This article presents the position held by Professor Nevile that in giving policy advice to the government, it is almost always desirable to draw on a range of different policy instruments. While theoretical input is usually important, it is even more important that theory does not lose contact with the real world. Factual descriptions of the real world and the use of a theoretical toolkit containing more than one theory are essential in achieving this goal. These principles are illustrated by a discussion of a particular category of policy advice – the evaluation of government programmes.

Perspectives on Security in Twentieth-Century Europe and the World

Despite the present-day attraction of ‘security’ as an attention-grabbing word in politics and the public sphere, the study of security is a missing chapter in many state-of-the-art surveys of historical literature. Its central relevance for the modern statehood has been obvious for centuries in the European context. In Thomas Hobbes's mid-seventeenth-century Leviathan, written in the context of the devastating English civil war and previous religious wars, government was given the fundamental role in guaranteeing security. Over the course of the twentieth century, intellectuals have constantly debated Hobbes's ideas and concepts about security and societal peace. Especially after the second world war, security has found major attention in the fields of International Relations and its sub-discipline security studies. Security studies evolved during the nuclear age and were originally foremost about the study of the threat, use and control of military force, as one proponent of security studies, Stephen Walt, stated. They were mainly concerned with military strategy and giving policy advice to the military. Since the cold war, the study of security has come a long way. Most importantly, as Emma Rothschild has reminded us, during the past two decades or so, the concept was first extended downwards from states to individuals, upwards from the nation to the biosphere and horizontally from the military to the economic, social, political and environmental. It is the reflection of this dynamic change in theory, methodology and empirical research that connects most of the books under review in this article.

Investment Adjustment Costs: An Empirical Assessment

We evaluate the empirical evidence for costs that penalize changes in investment using U.S. industry data. In aggregate models, such investment adjustment costs have been introduced to help account for a variety of business cycle and asset market phenomena. So far no attempt has been made to estimate these costs directly at a disaggregated level. We consider an industry model with investment adjustment costs and estimate its parameters using generalized methods of moments. The findings indicate small costs associated with changing the flow of investment at the industry level. The weighted average of the industry elasticities with respect to the shadow price of capital, which depends inversely on the adjustment cost parameter, is eight times larger than the largest estimate reported in Levin et al. (2006). We examine a variety of factors that may account for this discrepancy, but a substantial part of it remains unexplained. Our results therefore suggest that more caution is needed when giving policy advice that hinges on a structural interpretation of large investment adjustment costs.

South‐South cooperation: is there a foundation in trade?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the trade relationship between China and other developing countries, analyze the regional structure and the commodity composition, and give policy advice to promote economic and trade ties between them and then investigate the trade foundation of South‐South cooperation.Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of a statistical and quantitative analysis of trade flows. Some creative indicators are designed to measure the competitiveness and complementarities existing between China and developing countries. The sample of the study comprises 165 developing countries excluding those newly industrialized economies such as Singapore, and South Korea.Findings – Developing countries are very important trade partners of China as a whole and trade with them has increased relatively fast in the last ten years. The pattern of trade shows that China has a complement in trade with most of developing countries although competitiveness exists in certain c...

Linguistic forms and educational policy: the influence of Basil Bernstein

Linguistic forms and educational policy: the influence of Basil Bernstein

Collective Punishments: Incentives and Examinations in Organisations

The paper investigates the impact of examinations on incentives and decision-making in bureaucracies and similar organisations. When one amongst a group of bureaucrats can be appointed to give policy advice whose outcome affects all parties, with advisory ability increasing in personal effort, a free-riding problem is generated if preferences are aligned, leading to an ex ante inefficiency. Free-riding may be mitigated by an examination with a pass-mark, i.e., a minimum ability requirement as a necessary criterion for advisory appointment. By collectively punishing all experts when maximal ability is low, it raises private incentive to enhance ability, and improves decision quality.

Markets, Politics, and Democracy at Chicago

In September and October 1975, New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis reported on the University of Chicago pedigree of the Pinochet government’s economic program. The so-called Chicago Boys, a group of Chilean alumni of the University of Chicago, had written a set of policy recommendations for Jorge Alessandri when he was a candidate in Chile’s 1970 presidential election. The election was won by Salvador Allende. In October 1973, a month after the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, the Chicago Boys published their policy recommendations as “El Ladrillo” (The Brick). Several members of the group were subsequently appointed to positions in the government. Anthony Lewis portrayed Friedman, who had visited Chile in the spring of 1975 with Arnold Harberger, as the “guiding light” of the Pinochet economic policy, a “policy that could not be imposed on a free society” (October 2, 1975). He attributed to Friedman the idea that a growing disparity of incomes between the rich and poor is part of the mechanism by which anti-inflation policy works. Lewis asked “if the pure Chicago economic theory can be carried out in Chile only at the price of repression should its authors feel some responsibility? There are troubling questions here about the social role of academics” (October 2, 1975). Almost immediately, protests began on the University of Chicago campus under the auspices of the “Committee against Friedman/Harberger Collaboration with the Chilean Junta.” Protesters demanded that Friedman be driven out of the university. The protests and harassment lasted for the next five years, reaching a peak after the announcement that Friedman would receive the 1976 Nobel Prize. Friedman had fewer defenders among academics than one might expect given the collegiate totem of academic freedom. Some balanced their defense of Friedman’s rights against the gravity of the charges of giving policy advice to a repressive regime. Other academics joined the protesters. Nobel laureates George Wald and Linus Pauling wrote to the New York Times (October 24, 1976) accusing Friedman of being an accessory to human rights crimes. In a second letter published alongside theirs, two other Nobel laureates, David Baltimore and S. E. Luria, characterized the Nobel Prize committee’s selection of Friedman as “an insult to the people of Chile, burdened by the reactionary economic measures sponsored by Professor Friedman.”

The network of European Environment and Sustainable Development Advi- sory Councils (EEAC)

Advisory councils for environmental policy and sustainable development are a special kind of body, established by national and regional governments with the explicit task of giving independent policy advice. A variety of institutional types of councils has evolved over time, some of which have common tasks and some of which are more distinct. The network of European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils (EEAC) is an own initiative for cooperation, whose objectives are to allow member states' councils to exchange experiences and to collaborate in giving policy advice at EU level where appropriate. EEAC has developed from a rather loose set of discussions into what is now an extensive network with some degree of institutionalisation. It gives selective, joint advice on EU policy development, which can be a distinctive source of influence upon environmental policy and sustainable development.

Comparative governance: prospects and lessons

This article revisits the country case studies and seeks to answer two questions. What are the strengths and weaknesses of an interpretive approach? What lessons can we draw from our analysis of public sector reform? To assess an interpretive approach, we discuss: the issues raised in identifying beliefs; the meaning of explanation; how to select traditions; the shift from prediction to informed conjecture and policy advice as storytelling. To assess the lessons, we outline our preferred story of public sector reform. We seek to show that an interpretive approach produces insights for students of public administration. We argue it remains feasible to give policy advice to public sector managers by telling them stories and providing rules of thumb (proverbs) to guide managerial practices.