The Need for Humility in Policymaking

Reviews / Votes

Creating effective public policy is hard: Policymakers never have all the facts and they can't predict all the consequences. Thus, a dose of humility is essential in policymaking and the researchers in this timely volume show why through insightful examples ranging from economic development in Pennsylvania to state Medicaid waivers. It's an important book for policymakers and analysts alike. -- Adam Millsap, Assistant Director of the L. Charles Hilton Jr. Center at Florida State University and affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University The Need for Humility in Policymaking helps to remind students, scholars, and policy practitioners of our limited capacity to anticipate how people will react to changes in their incentives. This volume makes it clear that overlooking a relevant aspect of culture, a key social norm, or the importance of local knowledge when designing policies can have dire social consequences. -- Rosemarie Fike, Instructor of Economics, Texas Christian University Economists, even after the Financial Crisis of 2007, haven't exactly fostered a reputation for policy humility. This is primarily because mainstream economic models often do not fully incorporate concerns for knowledge and incentive problems in policy implementation. Thus, most policy advice proffered by economists implicitly assumes that policymakers, and the economists advising them, have both the adequate information and the proper incentives to make precise interventions in complex economies. The lack of concern for these real-world policy challenges makes policy interventions seem much more simplistic than they actually are. This in turn emboldens policymakers to undertake interventions without due humility. That lack of humility often leads to unintended consequences that, in at least some cases, are worse than the problems the policy was intended to address. In The Need for Humility in Policymaking, Haeffele and Hobson bring together twelve case studies of policy, ranging from telecommunications to banking policy, detailing the economic consequences of hubris in policymaking. Collectively, these chapters make a compelling argument for both economists and policymakers to embrace humility when it comes to policymaking. -- Daniel J. Smith, Director, Political Economy Research Institute at Middle Tennessee State University