Biased policy professionals

Banuri, Sheheryar, Dercon, Stefan and Gauri, Varun (2019) Biased policy professionals. World Bank Economic Review, 33 (2). pp. 310-327. ISSN 0258-6770

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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.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Published Online: 10/07/2019
Uncontrolled Keywords:	biases,decision making,policy professionals,framing,confirmation bias,behavioural economics
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Oct 2018 09:30
Last Modified:	12 Jun 2023 08:32
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/68613
DOI:	10.1093/wber/lhy033

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