{"id":18032,"date":"2016-10-07T12:19:49","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T12:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research\/can-economic-research-effectively-influence-policy\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T11:45:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T06:15:00","slug":"can-economic-research-effectively-influence-policy","status":"publish","type":"research","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/can-economic-research-effectively-influence-policy","title":{"rendered":"Can economic research effectively influence policy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Economists rarely agree with each other and sometimes contradict themselves. Understandably frustrated by the lack of conviction afflicting his economic\u00a0advisers, President Truman famously asked for a one-handed economist who wouldn’t be able to use the profession’s much-favored caveat – ‘On the other hand’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Those of us campaigning for the use of empirical research to drive public policy\u00a0design and implementation would be well served to be reminded of the difficulties inherent in the task.\u00a0A case in point<\/a>\u00a0would be to consider two recent papers that are well thought out, are based on plausible theory, and have sound research design but reach the exact opposite conclusions.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0forthcoming publication<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0American Economic Journal: Economic Policy<\/em>\u00a0by Ater, Givati, and Rigbi concludes that assuring criminals of a constitutional right to legal counsel results in a higher crime rate. The well-intentioned\u00a0legal presumption of innocence discourages police from making arrests that they may not be able to defend in court, which seems to lower\u00a0the cost of crime for criminals.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Heaton, Mayson, and Stevenson<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0University of Pennsylvania Law School<\/em>\u00a0find negative long-term spillover effects of pretrial detention. Detainees are more likely to be sentenced to jail, receive twice the average length of jail time, and commit crimes in the future.<\/p>\n

The former study recommends a course of stricter detention; conversely, the latter recommends a better pretrial release policy. Unfortunately, such situations allow policymakers and lobbyists to cherry-pick research that confirms their pre-existing biases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":33313,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"new_tags":[],"series":[],"subject":[2867],"class_list":["post-18032","research","type-research","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","subject-businessandeconomics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCan economic research effectively influence policy? | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Those who campaign\u00a0for the use of empirical research to drive public policy\u00a0design and implementation should be reminded of the difficulties inherent in the task.\u00a0A case in point\u00a0would be to consider two recent papers that are well thought out, are based on plausible theory, and have sound research design but reach the exact opposite conclusions. Read more about these two studies here.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/can-economic-research-effectively-influence-policy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can economic research effectively influence policy? | Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Those who campaign\u00a0for the use of empirical research to drive public policy\u00a0design and implementation should be reminded of the difficulties inherent in the task.\u00a0A case in point\u00a0would be to consider two recent papers that are well thought out, are based on plausible theory, and have sound research design but reach the exact opposite conclusions. 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