Category: Economic Policy

Causal Inference for Policymaking

I just submitted an extended abstract of an upcoming paper to a conference that will discuss new analytical tools and techniques for policymaking. The abstract contains a brief discussion about the importance of causal inference for taking informed policy decisions. And I would like to share these thoughts here. Continue reading Causal Inference for Policymaking

What’s wrong with policy advice?

John Cochrane recently released a blog post about the discrepancy between academic work and policy advice in macroeconomics. He criticizes that consulting for the policy world is most often based on economic methodology such as static IS-LM/AS-AD models. These date back 40 years and have largely disappeared from the academic landscape.

This current state is puzzling. At least one of the reasons why we do economic research is to better guide policy makers to more sensible interventions to the economy. So either “academic research ran off the rails for 40 years producing nothing of value” or we hold back the diamonds for our little elite circle in the ivory tower. I have seen quite some policy related work myself. Thus,  I want report from my own field – innovation economics. Continue reading What’s wrong with policy advice?