I thought of summarising all of what I consider to be useful posts on public policy, especially for commentators and researchers who engage on these issues.
While most insiders in government take many of these for granted (though not always with a full understanding of its implications for policy making and implementation), very few outsiders appear to be even aware of these as issues. It manifests in the constant articulation of logically great but impractical ideas in public commentary as well as in the anger and frustration at governments in general. Consultants, researchers, and general opinion makers are particularly prone.
Most of these posts should be seen as merely surfacing very important but less discussed aspects of development and policy making. Where solutions have been suggested, they are only illustrative pointers.
So here goes, for whatever it is worth, the list of posts:
On policy making and implementation
1. Importance of trust and delegation for public official managing large organisations or programs so as to prioritise their work on the handful of issues which are truly important and need attention and effort. This on the role of simple management practices in improving state capabilities.
2. This on the two imprimaturs of sophistication and professionalism in our times, the application of the scientific method to development, the rise of technocracy - the objectivity of quantitative methods, and the wisdom of experts.
3. This, this, this, this, and this on the perils with pursuing a logically appealing strategy of purely outcomes-based targeting of development objectives. It is very counter-intuitive.
4. This, this, and this about the problems with the use of performance incentives in public services.
5. This (Aadhaar and internet access), this (banking sector supervision), this (use of technology in targeting), this (health care), and this (DBT transfers) about the limits of digitisation and applications of technology in solving persistent development problems. They also highlight the importance of retaining traditional physical inspections based oversight.
6. This and this about the problems with the elimination of middlemen.
7. This and this about the problems of excessive reliance on aspirational standardisation in development policy making and this about the trend of harmonisation of trade and other practices motivated by imperatives of globalisation.
8. This and this on the problems with the disproportionate focus on efficiency seeking interventions at the cost of resilience etc in businesses and governments which end up detracting from realisation of the objectives.
9. This on the need to shift the paradigm on public service delivery away from efficiency toward quality.
10. This on the reality that supply side is absent or severely constrained to substitute or outsource to private providers the many services offered by governments.
11. This, this, and this on the problems with the excessive application of financial incentives to attain development goals.
12. On wicked problems, this and this from agriculture.
13 This and this on the general problem of excessive reliance on experts and technocracy. Some examples - from Covid 19 response, and this and this from central banking,
14. On the importance of the small details of implementation - from agriculture, factoring receivables, this and this with labour market, export promotion schemes, and MUDRA scheme.
The gist of some of these are compiled in this collection on behavioural challenges for IAS officers co-authored with Dr TV Somanathan.
On International Development
15. This and this on impact investing.
16. A reality check on some of the excessively hyped areas of development innovation in impact investing - financial engineering, fintech here and here, micro pensions, crop insurance, and micro-insurance.
17. On the problems with the excessive reliance on consultants in development here, here, here and here. This agenda for consultants to governments.
18. On problems in the academia - conflicts of interest, peddling false narratives, claiming more than there is from their research etc.
19. On problems with specific RCTs - impact of Aadhaar on welfare programs delivery, hotspot policing, third party quality audits in pollution control, telephone feedback solicitation, policing reforms.
20. On general problems with RCTs here (implementation validity), here (displacing other research on India), here (scale validity challenge), here, here, and here.
21. On research-reality challenges - trade-off between academic rigour and relevance, dataisation and ahistoricism. This and this about the limitations of the Raj Chetty school of data economics research in its relevance for policy making.
22. On general problems in development thinking - enduring fallacies, discourse of development, experience discount, inadequate context appreciation (Jensen paper) etc.
23. This and this on the excessive reliance on smartness in solving development problems.
24. On the deeply misleading campaign surrounding evidence-based policy making - this on evidence generation to satisfy the urges of researchers and outsiders, this and this on the need to adopt a non-ideological approach and prioritise the use of evidence arising from latent institutional knowledge, and this on why policy makers find the vast pile of evidence generated largely useless.
25. This, this, and this on the smart-outsider-knows-best problem in development.
26. Finally, this on why development is a faith-based activity.
1 comment:
Excellent resource.
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