Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
both these quests involve dimensions of shaping public policy to improve the
human condition. In regional science in particular, the role of analysis is to improve
our ability to understand the implications of alternative policy choices affecting
regions. The tools that have been developed in the field over the past half century in
the course of this still emerging field—input-output analysis, location theory,
regional econometrics, geographical information systems, to name a few—are
perhaps utilized for this purpose more than any other. Many, if not most of these
areas had beginnings in Isard's work.
In applying these frameworks today to public policy, it is useful distinguish
between two fundamentally different conceptual approaches to addressing public
policy questions: (1) to fashion steps directed at the most desirable outcome
(however desirable is defined)—an explicit
planning objective
or (2) to articulate
the consequences of possible alternative courses of action—a perhaps more modest
impact analysis objective
. This paper first explores conceptually these two
approaches and the circumstances suggesting one approach versus the other and
illustrates the differences with an example involving the use of optimization tools
and input-output analysis.
13.2
The Role of Analysis in Public Policy: An Illustration
I recall my arrival in Washington, DC in the early 1980s, on leave from academia
eager to apply my engineering and economic analysis skills to solving national
policy problems. As a visiting senior analyst at the former Congressional Office of
Technology Assessment (OTA)
1
my initial charge was to examine the cost and
performance of new electric power technologies in order to assess their relative
prospects for increased deployment in the United States over the next two decades
relative to conventional alternatives of the time, and to consider the strengths and
weaknesses of alternative public policy measures for accelerating deployment of
different types of new power technologies in various regions of the country.
2
It was
1
In 1972 the United States Congress established the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) as a
small analytical agency to become better informed about implications of new and emerging
technologies. The agency's architects intended the reports and associated information it produced
to be tuned specifically to the language and context of Congress. OTA's principal
products—technology assessments—were designed to inform Congressional deliberations and
debates about issues that involved science and technology dimensions but without recommending
specific policy actions. The agency's unique governance by a bicameral and bipartisan board of
House and Senate Members helped ensure that issues OTA addressed were relevant to the
Congressional agenda and that assessments were undertaken with partisan and other stakeholder
bias minimized. Over a span of 23 years OTA completed 755 reports on a wide range of topics
including health, energy, defense, space, information technology, environment, and many others
until Congress terminated the agency's annual appropriation of funds to operate in 1995 (see Blair
2013
).
2
Office of Technology Assessment,
New Electric Power Technologies: Problems and Prospects
for the 1990s
, Washington, DC: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-E-246,
July 1985.
