IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausecr/v56y2023i4p431-441.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating Policy Impact: Working Out What Works

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Leigh

Abstract

Randomised trials frequently produce surprising findings, overturning conventional wisdom. During the twentieth century, randomised trials became commonplace within medicine, saving millions of lives. Randomised trials within government can now be conducted more cheaply, using administrative data. Just as it might be considered unethical to conduct a randomised trial if a program is indisputably effective, it might be considered unethical not to conduct a rigorous evaluation if a program lacks evidence. Developed within a robust ethical framework, and alongside community consultation, better evaluation can help governments save money and address social disadvantage.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Leigh, 2023. "Evaluating Policy Impact: Working Out What Works," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 56(4), pages 431-441, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:56:y:2023:i:4:p:431-441
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.12530
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12530
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8462.12530?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefano DellaVigna & Elizabeth Linos, 2022. "RCTs to Scale: Comprehensive Evidence From Two Nudge Units," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 81-116, January.
    2. Anthony Petrosino & Carolyn Turpin‐Petrosino & Meghan E. Hollis‐Peel & Julia G. Lavenberg, 2013. "Scared Straight and Other Juvenile Awareness Programs for Preventing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 1-55.
    3. Daniele Fanelli, 2009. "How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-11, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moustafa, Khaled, 2018. "Don't fall in common science pitfall!," FrenXiv ycjha, Center for Open Science.
    2. Alexander K. Koch & Dan Mønster & Julia Nafziger, 2023. "Nudging in complex environments," Economics Working Papers 2023-06, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    3. Andor, Mark A. & Gerster, Andreas & Peters, Jörg & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2020. "Social Norms and Energy Conservation Beyond the US," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Love, Peter E.D. & Ika, Lavagnon A. & Ahiaga-Dagbui, Dominic D., 2019. "On de-bunking ‘fake news’ in a post truth era: Why does the Planning Fallacy explanation for cost overruns fall short?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 397-408.
    5. Jeremy Hall & Ben R. Martin, 2019. "Towards a Taxonomy of Academic Misconduct: The Case of Business School Research," SPRU Working Paper Series 2019-02, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Abel Brodeur, Nikolai M. Cook, Anthony Heyes, 2022. "We Need to Talk about Mechanical Turk: What 22,989 Hypothesis Tests Tell Us about Publication Bias and p-Hacking in Online Experiments," LCERPA Working Papers am0133, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis.
    7. Christina Gravert, 2024. "From Intent to Inertia: Experimental Evidence from the Retail Electricity Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 11139, CESifo.
    8. Kartal, Melis & Tremewan, James, 2018. "An offer you can refuse: The effect of transparency with endogenous conflict of interest," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 44-55.
    9. Robert J Warren II & Joshua R King & Charlene Tarsa & Brian Haas & Jeremy Henderson, 2017. "A systematic review of context bias in invasion biology," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-12, August.
    10. C. Yiwei Zhang & Jeffrey Hemmeter & Judd B. Kessler & Robert D. Metcalfe & Robert Weathers, 2023. "Nudging Timely Wage Reporting: Field Experimental Evidence from the U.S. Supplemental Security Income Program," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1341-1353, March.
    11. Jasper Brinkerink, 2023. "When Shooting for the Stars Becomes Aiming for Asterisks: P-Hacking in Family Business Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(2), pages 304-343, March.
    12. Frederique Bordignon, 2020. "Self-correction of science: a comparative study of negative citations and post-publication peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1225-1239, August.
    13. Hensel, Przemysław G., 2019. "Supporting replication research in management journals: Qualitative analysis of editorials published between 1970 and 2015," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 45-57.
    14. Julian House & Nicola Lacetera & Mario Macis & Nina Mazar, 2022. "Nudging the Nudger: A Field Experiment on the Effect of Performance Feedback to Service Agents on Increasing Organ Donor Registrations," CESifo Working Paper Series 10012, CESifo.
    15. Syon P. Bhanot, 2021. "Good for you or good for us? A field experiment on motivating citizen behavior change," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 4(1).
    16. Bergemann, Dirk & Ottaviani, Marco, 2021. "Information Markets and Nonmarkets," CEPR Discussion Papers 16459, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Björn Bartling & Alexander W. Cappelen & Henning Hermes & Marit Skivenes & Bertil Tungodden, 2023. "Free to fail? Paternalistic preferences in the United States," ECON - Working Papers 436, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    18. Joshua Dalton, 2023. "Book Review: List, J. (2022). The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale. New York, NY: Penguin Random House. pp. 288. $28.00. ISBN 9780593239483 (hardcover)," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 68(1), pages 163-165, March.
    19. Gary Charness & David Masclet & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "The Dark Side of Competition for Status," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 38-55, January.
    20. Lars Behlen & Oliver Himmler & Robert Jäckle, 2023. "Defaults and effortful tasks," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1022-1059, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bla:ausecr:v:56:y:2023:i:4:p:431-441. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    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.