The WTO and the Transfer of Policy Knowledge: The Case of Trade and Competition

Learning by observing: surveying the international arena

“…11 From a different angle it could be argued that those adopting early learn less because few results have emerged (see Zukin and Snyder, 1984). 12 Morrissey and Nelson (2003) use models of Bayesian updating to explain the spread of economic liberalisation; Jörgens (2004) uses it to explain the spread of sustainable development strategies; and Levi-Faur (2003) uses it to explain the rise of the regulatory policies. 13 Probably the closest a government has come to Bayesian learning occurred when the Blair government chose to adopt the US Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and implement it as the initial Working Families' Tax Credit (WFTC).…”

“…The complexity of the situation becomes clear if we link perception, leadership and prospect theory. Here, when decision makers perceive themselves in the realm of loss, because imitation is cheap and innovation expensive, regardless of partisan predispositions, they will turn to those accepted as leaders, and mimic their actions rather than implement fundamental change (see Hall, 1993;Levy, 1994;Radaelli, 2000;Strange and Macy, 2001;Levi-Faur, 2003;Morrissey and Nelson, 2003;Way, 2003;Jörgens, 2004).…”

“…14 When looking abroad for ideas, one of the key reasons why hard learning occurs is that there are situations in which decision makers become interested in gaining Linking this back to Figure 3, two general hypotheses can be generated. First, due to the tendency, over time, for the updating process to lead to Nash equilibrium, where new information becomes 'discounted' when it contradicts the accumulated 'knowledge,' it can be hypothesised that first movers will tend to be able to learn more than those caught in the middle or end of a statistical or reputational cascade (see Gul and Lundholm, 1995;Morrissey and Nelson, 2003). Second, not withstanding what was previously stated, over time, even policy makers dedicated to actively searching and learning 'stop' learning given enough elapsed time.…”

Stormwater management: can we learn from others?

“…Initially, transfer studies focused on the temporal patterns of policy spread across states (Crain 1966, Walker 1969, Gray 1973, Eyestone 1977, Savage 1985 and the analysis of cross-national 'lesson-drawing' and policy-borrowing (Armytage 1967, 1968, Becker 1970, Westney 1987, Goodman 1989, Rose 1993, Rogers 2003. The findings of these initial studies led to a range of advances in our understanding of why and how political systems turn to each other for ideas (Berry and Berry 1990, Levi-Faur 2003, Morrissey and Nelson 2003. Much of this literature is underpinned by the rational actor model, in which agents (individually and collectively) 'actively' learn from others and subsequently implement the best possible reform to their existing policy situation (Jacoby 2000, p. 6).…”