The Evidence-to-Policy Pipeline – May 23, 2024

Session Description

The Evidence-to-Policy Pipeline w/ Eva Vivalt | College and University Fund Lecture Series: Research to Solve Problems

“Recent years have seen a large increase in the availability of rigorous impact evaluations that could inform policy decisions. However, it is not enough for evidence to exist: It must also be seen as relevant and correctly interpreted. In this talk, I’ll share new research (with Aidan Coville and Sampada KC) drawing on experiments conducted with policymakers, practitioners, and researchers at World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank workshops. We explored how each of these three groups respond to and weigh evidence when it is presented to them, and which types of evidence policymakers tend to weigh more heavily. We find greater weight placed on good news than bad, insensitivity to confidence intervals, and that policymakers were extremely sensitive to context and whether the evidence or recommendation was produced locally. After presenting results, I will discuss what researchers can do to make it more likely that their findings are used.”