Priorities for Economic Policy Research

Abstract

My first teaching job was in Oxford. When the time came to prepare students for final examinations, I enquired of colleagues what material to cover and how to treat past examination papers. I was told that, in Oxford examinations, the questions are always the same — only the answers change. In economic policy research, at least, I now think the truth is closer to the converse: the policy questions and their origins may change dramatically, but the economists’ answers are fairly similar, regardless. This is partly because ‘answers’ yielded by economic policy research are more often ways of analysing policy problems than statements of the form, ‘You should do this’.