Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off

Policy makers bemoan the lack of research findings to guide urgent decisions, whereas researchers' professional code puts rigor first. This article argues that provisional assessments, produced early in the research cycle, can bridge the gap. Numerous case studies point to the importance of ear...

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Main Authors:	Bell, Clive, Squire, Lyn
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2018
Subjects:	COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS SOCIAL DISCOUNT RATE PLANNING MODELS ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY POLICY RESEARCH PROJECT ANALYSIS PROJECT EVALUATION PLANNING POLICY
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30964

id	okr-10986-30964
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-309642021-05-25T10:54:35Z Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off Bell, Clive Squire, Lyn COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS SOCIAL DISCOUNT RATE PLANNING MODELS ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY POLICY RESEARCH PROJECT ANALYSIS PROJECT EVALUATION PLANNING POLICY Policy makers bemoan the lack of research findings to guide urgent decisions, whereas researchers' professional code puts rigor first. This article argues that provisional assessments, produced early in the research cycle, can bridge the gap. Numerous case studies point to the importance of early interaction with policy makers and the delivery of brief, policy-focused papers; but preliminary analyses may be flawed and so increase the chances of a wrong decision. This article demonstrates analytically that a preliminary assessment, supported by the offer of more refined research, provides an option that is superior, on average, to the current practice of submitting a final report at the end of the research cycle. Where practical implementation is concerned, it calls for donor-funded subsidies to promote the use of provisional assessments and for a rapid, independent, professional review process to ensure their quality. While the research-policy exchange in developing countries is a complex, context-specific phenomenon, the proposal offered here holds out some promise of improving decisions in the public sphere under a wide range of circumstances. 2018-12-06T21:50:04Z 2018-12-06T21:50:04Z 2017-06-01 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30964 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS SOCIAL DISCOUNT RATE PLANNING MODELS ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY POLICY RESEARCH PROJECT ANALYSIS PROJECT EVALUATION PLANNING POLICY
spellingShingle	COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS SOCIAL DISCOUNT RATE PLANNING MODELS ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY POLICY RESEARCH PROJECT ANALYSIS PROJECT EVALUATION PLANNING POLICY Bell, Clive Squire, Lyn Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off
description	Policy makers bemoan the lack of research findings to guide urgent decisions, whereas researchers' professional code puts rigor first. This article argues that provisional assessments, produced early in the research cycle, can bridge the gap. Numerous case studies point to the importance of early interaction with policy makers and the delivery of brief, policy-focused papers; but preliminary analyses may be flawed and so increase the chances of a wrong decision. This article demonstrates analytically that a preliminary assessment, supported by the offer of more refined research, provides an option that is superior, on average, to the current practice of submitting a final report at the end of the research cycle. Where practical implementation is concerned, it calls for donor-funded subsidies to promote the use of provisional assessments and for a rapid, independent, professional review process to ensure their quality. While the research-policy exchange in developing countries is a complex, context-specific phenomenon, the proposal offered here holds out some promise of improving decisions in the public sphere under a wide range of circumstances.
format	Journal Article
author	Bell, Clive Squire, Lyn
author_facet	Bell, Clive Squire, Lyn
author_sort	Bell, Clive
title	Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off
title_short	Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off
title_full	Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off
title_fullStr	Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off
title_full_unstemmed	Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off
title_sort	providing policy makers with timely advice : the timeliness-rigor trade-off
publisher	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
publishDate	2018
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30964
_version_	1764473284207837184

Providing Policy Makers with Timely Advice : The Timeliness-Rigor Trade-off

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