Evidence-Based Policy: The Tension Between the Epistemic and the Normative

ABSTRACT

Acceding to the demand that public policy should be based on “the best available evidence” can come at significant moral cost. Important policy questions cannot be addressed using “the best available evidence” as defined by the evidence-based policy paradigm; the paradigm can change the meaning of questions so that they can be addressed using the preferred kind of evidence; and important evidence that does not meet the standard defined by the paradigm can get ignored. We illustrate these problems in three contexts of evidence-based policy.

Keywords:

• evidence-based policy
• evidence-based initiatives
• randomized controlled trials
• behavioral economics
• development economics
• nudge theory
• Abhijit Banerjee
• Esther Duflo