The recent Committee on National Statistics report, Sowing Seeds of Change: Informing Public Policy in the Economic Research Service of USDA, and a number of other reports of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council discuss different aspects of the organization and evaluation of public policy research in the federal government. We draw general principles from these studies for the management of such research.
Our focus is on social-science research, mainly economics, and on research agencies that are mission oriented, for example, those that support the programs of a department of government. The principles we derive, however, apply to the production of research and statistics in government more generally.
We first address a few fundamental questions: Why do social-science issues arise in the governance of a market-oriented democracy? What is the purpose of research agencies and why do departments of government charged with economic or social intervention need them? How does a research agency define itself in terms of what knowledge and information to generate and, therefore, what research to conduct?
The principles we derive are organized to provide some answers to questions that research agencies continually face:
He is a recognized expert in national statistics, the federal statistical system, statistical evidence in the courts, and the use of information for public policy decision making. At the Academy, he has developed over 50 major studies and over 40 conferences in the application of statistics to public policy.
Dr. Straf received his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Chicago. He has taught on the faculties of the University of California, Berkeley and The London School of Economics and Political Science. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and a fellow and current candidate for President of the American Statistical Association.