How Research Affects Policy: Experimental Evidence from 2,150 Brazilian Municipalities

Hjort, Jonas; Moreira, Diana; Rao, Gautam; Santini, Juan Francisco

doi:10.1257/aer.20190830

Cited by 57 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(56 reference statements)

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“…Akhmedov and Zhuravskaya (2004), Finan (2008), andRepetto (2018) find that the extent of policy transparency is strongly linked to political outcomes like public spending, budget deficits, or prospects of re-election for incumbent politicians. Hjort et al (2021) show that informing Brazilian mayors about the effectiveness of policies to enhance tax compliance increases the probability of such policies being implemented. Geys and Sørensen (2019) use a survey experiment to study how politicians change their preferences for school reforms when confronted with local school-performance data.…”

Section: Literature Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians

et al. 2023

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Section: Literature Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians

et al. 2023

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“…Zelizer (2018) randomly assigned policy briefings for staffers in a U.S. state legislature and those briefings increased bill co-sponsorship 60% above baseline rates on relevant legislation. In an experiment with 2,150 Brazilian municipalities, Hjort et al (2021) found that providing information on the efficacy of taxpayer reminder letters increased actual uptake of the policy by 10%.…”

Section: Psychological Barriers To the Use Of Scientific Evidence In ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Activating an evidence-based identity increases the impact of evidence on policymaker beliefs about local climate policies

Hirsch

Wong‐Parodi²

2023

Environ. Res.: Climate

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Evidence-based policymaking has the potential to improve the efficiency and impact of climate mitigation and adaptation policies, but that promise cannot be fulfilled if policymakers fail to change their minds (update their beliefs) when presented with new evidence. Research suggests that individuals often resist changing their mind, especially on polarized topics like climate action. Here we explore whether an “evidence-based policymaker” intervention can reduce resistance when policymakers interpret new information. We hypothesize that, if policymakers wish to see themselves as "evidence-based", reminding them of that identity can make changing their beliefs more comfortable. This is because belief-updating provides an opportunity to affirm their identity as an evidence-based policymaker. In two survey studies of state and local U.S. policymakers – a neutral policy pilot (n = 152) and a polarizing climate policy experiment (n = 356) – we show that the intervention was effective, even when evidence was incompatible with prior policy beliefs or party ideology. This finding suggests that making evidence-based identities salient when presenting new evidence could increase that information’s impact on climate policymaking.

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“…Additionally, research on decision making and motivated reasoning shows that politicians are inclined to interpret new information in light of previous beliefs and opinions (Bolsen and Palm, 2019). Experimental studies, for example, find that politicians are often biased by partisan convictions when confronted with contradicting evidence (Baekgaard et al, 2019; Hjort et al, 2021; Lee, 2021) and that political positions can even be reinforced as a response to science (e.g. Heikkila et al, 2020).…”

Section: Previous Research: Partisanship and Research Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Partisanship and science advice: Do the right prefer economists and the left social scientists?

Hesstvedt

2022

Party Politics

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It is often claimed that parties on the left and right have different preferences for scholarly knowledge. However, little research has addressed whether partisanship actually matters for science advice preferences, particularly in the European setting. Drawing on original data on governmental appointments of academic scholars to more than 1400 public advisory commissions in Norway between 1969 and 2020, this article examines whether the left–right divide matters for cabinets’ consultation of economists and social scientists. The findings reveal that left-wing governments in Norway have consulted scholars of social science—such as sociologists and political scientists—more frequently than right-wing governments. In contrast, partisanship seem to matter less for the consultation of economic scholars, as economists have been extensively used as advisors by both blocs in the period studied. Overall, the article contributes theoretical and empirical knowledge to the politics of science advice.

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How Research Affects Policy: Experimental Evidence from 2,150 Brazilian Municipalities

Cited by 57 publications

References 66 publications

Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians

Transparency and Policy Competition: Experimental Evidence from German Citizens and Politicians

Activating an evidence-based identity increases the impact of evidence on policymaker beliefs about local climate policies

Partisanship and science advice: Do the right prefer economists and the left social scientists?

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