Policy decisions and evidence use among civil servants: A group decision experiment in Pakistan

Laura Metzger, Adnan Qadir Khan and Teddy Svoronos

STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series from Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE

Abstract: In a lab-in-field experiment with elite civil servants in Pakistan, we investigate whether groups outperform individuals in a two-staged task which requires effective use of data and evidence. We also study how efficiently groups harness their members' individual knowledge for problem-solving. We do not find a significant difference in individual (first stage) and group performance (second stage). Yet, groups could have significantly improved their performance during the second stage of the task, had they more efficiently collaborated to retrieve their members' respective knowledge. Carefully interpreted in the setting of our experiment, our data suggests that diversity in individual knowledge may hamper effective use of data and evidence for decision-making in small groups of policymakers.

Keywords: evidence-based policy; adult learning; group decisions; lab-in-field experiment; civil servants; Pakistan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A29 C92 I28 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:stieop:68

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