IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izapps/pp208.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ten Lessons for Economic Policymakers

Author

Listed:
  • Leigh, Andrew

    (Parliament of Australia)

Abstract

Economists have played a powerful role in shaping modern Australia. Drawing on my experience as an academic economist and an economic policymaker, I outline ten principles to guide economists seeking to maximise their impact. These are to (1) Focus on wellbeing, not just dollars; (2) Think comparative advantage; (3) Ignore sunk costs; (4) Optimise, subject to constraints; (5) Use the best evidence; (6) Consider expected value; (7) Think in magnitudes, not just in signs; (8) Channel a libertarian; (9) Remember equity; and (10) Incentives matter.

Suggested Citation

  • Leigh, Andrew, 2024. "Ten Lessons for Economic Policymakers," IZA Policy Papers 208, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izapps:pp208
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/pp208.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven D Levitt, 2021. "Heads or Tails: The Impact of a Coin Toss on Major Life Decisions and Subsequent Happiness," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(1), pages 378-405.
    2. Gans, Joshua S. & Leigh, Andrew, 2009. "Born on the first of July: An (un)natural experiment in birth timing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 246-263, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Beatrice Brunner & Andreas Kuhn, 2011. "Financial Incentives, the Timing of Births, Birth Complications, and Newborns’ Health: Evidence from the Abolition of Austria’s Baby Bonus," NRN working papers 2011-16, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    2. Joshua S. Gans & Andrew Leigh, 2012. "Bargaining Over Labour: Do Patients Have Any Power?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(281), pages 182-194, June.
    3. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2022. "The effects of incentivizing early prenatal care on infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Gabriel Leite Mota, 2022. "Unsatisfying ordinalism: The breach through which happiness (re)entered economics," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 513-528, June.
    5. Natalia Danzer & Victor Lavy, 2018. "Paid Parental Leave and Children's Schooling Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 81-117, February.
    6. Gans, Joshua S. & Leigh, Andrew & Varganova, Elena, 2007. "Minding the shop: The case of obstetrics conferences," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(7), pages 1458-1465, October.
    7. Marcus Tamm, 2013. "The Impact of a Large Parental Leave Benefit Reform on the Timing of Birth around the Day of Implementation-super-," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(4), pages 585-601, August.
    8. Wojciech Charemza & Svetlana Makarova & Imran Shah, 2015. "Making the most of high inflation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(34-35), pages 3723-3739, July.
    9. Eliason, M. & Ohlsson, H., 2013. "Timing of death and the repeal of the Swedish inheritance tax," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 113-123.
    10. Joshua C. Hall, 2017. "A "Model" Model: McCloskey and the Craft of Economics," Working Papers 17-09, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    11. Anam Bilgrami & Kompal Sinha & Henry Cutler, 2020. "The impact of introducing a national scheme for paid parental leave on maternal mental health outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(12), pages 1657-1681, December.
    12. Slonimczyk, Fabián & Yurko, Anna, 2014. "Assessing the impact of the maternity capital policy in Russia," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 265-281.
    13. Frodermann, Corinna & Wrohlich, Katharina & Zucco, Aline, 2023. "Parental Leave Policy and Long-run Earnings of Mothers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    14. Margaret E. Brehm, 2018. "The Effects of Federal Adoption Incentive Awards for Older Children on Adoptions From U.S. Foster Care," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 301-330, March.
    15. Nicolas Moreau, 2021. "The Zero Effect of Income Tax on the Timing of Birth: Some Evidence on French Data," TEPP Working Paper 2021-03, TEPP.
    16. Nicolas Moreau, 2021. "The Zero Effect of Income Tax on the Timing of Birth: Some Evidence on French Data," Working Papers hal-03157256, HAL.
    17. Cristina Borra & Ana Costa-Ramon & Libertad González & Almudena Sevilla-Sanz, 2021. "The Causal Effect of an Income Shock on Children’s Human Capital," Working Papers 1272, Barcelona School of Economics.
    18. Johnsen, Julian & Ku, Hyejin, 2020. "Competition and Career Advancement: The Hidden Costs of Paid Leave," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 13/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    19. Gaitz, Jason & Schurer, Stefanie, 2017. "Bonus Skills: Examining the Effect of an Unconditional Cash Transfer on Child Human Capital Formation," IZA Discussion Papers 10525, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Cristina Borra & Libertad González Luna & Almudena Sevilla-Sanz, 2013. "The impact of eliminating a child benefit on birth timing and infant health," Economics Working Papers 1382, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic policy; role of economics; relation of economics to social values;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izapps:pp208. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.