Biased Policy Professionals

Sheheryar Banuri, Stefan Dercon and Varun Gauri

No 2019-07, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: Although the decisions of policy professionals are often more consequential than those of individuals in their private capacity, there is a dearth of studies on the biases of policy professionals: those who prepare and implement policy on behalf of elected politicians. Experiments conducted on a novel subject pool of development policy professionals (public servants of the World Bank and the Department for International Development in the UK) show that policy professionals are indeed subject to decision making traps, including the effects of framing outcomes as losses or gains, and most strikingly, confirmation bias driven by ideological predisposition, despite having an explicit mission to promote evidence-informed and impartial decision making. These findings should worry policy professionals and their principals in governments and large organizations, as well as citizens themselves. A further experiment, in which policy professionals engage in discussion, shows that deliberation may be able to mitigate the effects of some of these biases.

Keywords: Biases; decision making; policy professionals; framing; confirmation bias; behavioural economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 H83 Z18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Biased Policy Professionals (2019)
Working Paper: Biased Policy Professionals (2018)
Working Paper: Biased Policy Professionals (2018)
Working Paper: Biased Policy Professionals (2018)
Working Paper: Biased policy professionals (2017)
Working Paper: Biased policy professionals (2017)
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