In the past decade, strategies have emerged from different levels of government that simultaneously offer the potential to make better use of taxpayer dollars and speed up progress in addressing serious social problems (Shutterstock).
Paper
Building on Recent Advances in Evidence-Based Policymaking
April 17, 2013, Jeffrey B. Liebman
Over the past decade, and particularly over the past five years, new government strategies have begun to emerge—at the federal, state, and local levels—that offer the potential of simultaneously making better use of taxpayer dollars and speeding up progress in addressing serious social problems. Jeffrey Liebman of Harvard University discusses several of these strategies and outlines five steps that policymakers can take to better inform their work with evidence. He also proposes a grant competition that identifies and encourages innovation in ten social policy priority areas as well as federal support for state and local Pay for Success initiatives.