IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v116y2019p7634-7641.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Communicating uncertainty in policy analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Charles F. Manski

    (Department of Economics and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-2600)

Abstract

The term “policy analysis” describes scientific evaluations of the impacts of past public policies and predictions of the outcomes of potential future policies. A prevalent practice has been to report policy analysis with incredible certitude. That is, exact predictions of policy outcomes are routine, while expressions of uncertainty are rare. However, predictions and estimates often are fragile, resting on unsupported assumptions and limited data. Therefore, the expressed certitude is not credible. This paper summarizes my work documenting incredible certitude and calling for transparent communication of uncertainty. I present a typology of practices that contribute to incredible certitude, give illustrative examples, and offer suggestions on how to communicate uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles F. Manski, 2019. "Communicating uncertainty in policy analysis," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(16), pages 7634-7641, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:116:y:2019:p:7634-7641
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/116/16/7634.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kikuko Shoyama, 2021. "Assessment of Land-Use Scenarios at a National Scale Using Intensity Analysis and Figure of Merit Components," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-13, April.
    2. Yuxue Yang & Xuejiao Tan & Yafei Shi & Jun Deng, 2023. "What are the core concerns of policy analysis? A multidisciplinary investigation based on in-depth bibliometric analysis," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Philipp Eisenhauer & Janos Gabler & Lena Janys, 2021. "Structural Models for Policy-Making: Coping with Parametric Uncertainty," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 082, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    4. Eisenhauer, Philipp & Gabler, Janos & Janys, Lena, 2021. "Structural Models for Policy-Making: Coping with Parametric Uncertainty," IZA Discussion Papers 14317, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Herzog, Bodo, 2019. "Optimal policy under uncertainty and rational inattention," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 444-449.
    6. David Klenert & Franziska Funke & Linus Mattauch & Brian O’Callaghan, 2020. "Five Lessons from COVID-19 for Advancing Climate Change Mitigation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 751-778, August.
    7. Ilaria Benedetti & Gianni Betti & Federico Crescenzi, 2020. "Measuring Child Poverty and Its Uncertainty: A Case Study of 33 European Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-12, October.
    8. D'Alberto, Riccardo & Zavalloni, Matteo & Raggi, Meri & Viaggi, Davide, 2021. "A Statistical Matching approach to reproduce the heterogeneity of willingness to pay in benefit transfer," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:116:y:2019:p:7634-7641. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.