Issue 4: An efficient market for wonkery

Plus, a time-sensitive opportunity to mentor in Toronto

WELCOME

If you’re looking for an opportunity to support the career development of future policy leaders you might be interested in an upcoming event run by the University of Toronto Undergraduate Public Policy Students’ Association (UPPSA). They’re hosting a career Discovery Fair on March 2 and are looking for both public and private sector organizations to set up a table and chat with their members about careers in public policy for a couple of hours. If your company/team is willing to volunteer some time, please reach out within the next week and I’ll connect you with UPPSA for more information.

If you attend, make sure to swing by the EY table and say hi!

THIS MONTH’S SYLLABUS

💻“Untouched Policy Areas” by Thomas Hochman, Green Tape

Thomas Hochman at Green Tape (an excellently-named permitting policy Substack) muses on the concept of policy areas that don’t have enough people working on them, a.k.a. greenfield space for young or ambitious wonks looking to make their mark. He cites three from his area of expertise that feature innovative policy approaches from the past that may be worth resurrecting and revising for the 21st century.

A question for the Policycraft community: What might be some untouched policy areas in Canada? Are there forgotten ideas that could find new life in a new context? Perhaps concepts like public ownership/private operations models for infrastructure and land, the use of technology to enable traceability in public finances, or a ground-up re-think of K-12 education. Where might there be room for you to be a policy entrepreneur?

💻Fiscal Policy in the Great Election Year, International Monetary Fund

Chapter 2 [link will open a download box] of this major work from the IMF’s Fiscal Monitor is a 2024 Albie Award for Best Work on Political Economy winner. (The Albies are selected by longtime Policycraft academic crush, Daniel Drezner of Tufts University). While the ideas and commentary therein are ostensibly focused on fiscal and innovation policy, they have major implications for the industrial policy trend, education policy, foreign aid, and the social impacts of innovation that would benefit from being addressed via the fiscal policy toolbox. It’s a report worth exploring even if technology policy isn’t your métier.

💻Briefings by UKDayOne

This recommended read isn’t about the content of any individual briefing, but their format: an excellent example of how you do policy commentary for advocacy purposes well. From the in-depth number crunching to the second-order consequential thinking to the FAQ, UKDayOne’s mini-reports demonstrate how to communicate a policy position with legitimacy and substance.

🏛️Final Report: Massachusetts Juvenile Justice Pay for Success Project by Roca, Inc, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Third Sector Capital Partners, Inc.

Hype around pay-for-performance, public/private social intervention programs is high, but evidence based on real-world performance can be lacking, particularly if outcomes don’t meet expectations. Refreshingly, the partners behind a Massachusetts program to reduce male youth recidivism and improve employment outcomes have released a thorough, quantitative report that is frank about what worked, and what didn’t, with their project. It’s a valuable piece of research for anyone hoping to more successfully design something similar.

⚙️Policy Engine, created by Max Ghenis and Nikhil Woodruff

Policy Engine is a US-based, open source tool that helps individuals, researchers, and policymakers compute and assess the impact of public policies (particularly tax and benefit changes). You can play around with its simulator to create a policy reform and see how it impacts different types of households, and interacts with other taxes and benefits. Are there any Canadian wonks with a coding background and a dream who might want to try building something similar here?

📣“There’s no feedback loop between policy and implementation”, social post by the Niskanen Center, Twitter/X

A picture is truly worth 1,000 words (even if that picture also contains words):

This image is sourced from the Niskanen Center’s recent report on US state capacity; the commentary on feedback loops and policy outcomes starts on page 35 and can be easily transposed to the Canadian context. File under: not new, but evergreen.