About this episode
We explore the use of data and evidence in policymaking and higher education. We will hear from Doug Elmendorf, dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, about teaching the next generation. How are educators teaching students about the role of data and evidence in discourse and persuasion? We will also dive into policy areas where Doug sees the most room for compromise and progress and hear his takes on policy issues likely to be at the forefront of political debate in this election year.
Interviewer
Sarah Rosen Wartell, President, Urban Institute
Guest
Doug Elmendorf, dean and Don K. Price professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School
Transcript
Sarah Rosen Wartell, cohost:
Welcome to Evidence in Action, a podcast from the Urban Institute. I’m your cohost, Sarah Rosen Wartell. I have the honor of being Urban’s president.
Kimberlyn Leary, cohost:
And I’m your cohost, Kimberlyn Leary. I’m executive vice president of the Urban Institute.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
In this podcast, Kim and I are going to explore the role of evidence: what it is, who makes it, who can use it, who should be using it, and how it can help us to shape policy and achieve better social, economic, and environmental outcomes.
Kimberlyn Leary:
And on every episode, we’ll be joined by a brilliant guest ranging from federal policymakers, local leaders, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, and those who meet community needs.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
We’ll be asking them how they use facts, data, and evidence to improve lives and strengthen communities, and also about the limits of these tools in today’s complicated world. On today’s show, I’m sitting down with Doug Elmendorf. Doug has been the dean of the Harvard Kennedy School since 2016. After getting his PhD in economics from Harvard, he started immediately as an assistant professor of economics, but soon did a range of stints in public service at the Congressional Budget Office, the Council of Economic Advisors, and the Federal Reserve Board.
Doug and I met when he was deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department and was assistant director of the division of research and statistics at the Federal Reserve Board. He returned to the Congressional Budget Office as the director of CBO for a six-year term before being named dean at the Kennedy School.
So there’s no one better to talk to about the role of evidence in policymaking. Doug, it’s really fun to be with you. Thanks so much for joining us. So Doug, you started in the academy, but you made an early choice to switch to public service. Is there something in your background that made you make that choice? What was it that made you want to apply your rather considerable skills to the public sector?
Doug Elmendorf:
Well, my interest in public policy goes back to when I was in high school, I think, and enjoyed social studies class. And so that’s really the through line of my career. And when I was here as an assistant professor at Harvard, I taught a course with Martin Feldstein called American Economic Policy. So that’s always been my core interest. And of course, the Kennedy School is a school that focuses on making better public policy and training better public leaders.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
In many, many of your roles, you’ve had two different things to do. First, you provided decisionmakers. I think when we first met, you were advising the cabinet on potential bankruptcy legislation and its effects on the economy. And later at CBO, your team scored hundreds and hundreds of pieces of legislation before they were taken up for consideration.
So how important are the facts and the evidence in that analysis to the decisionmaking? We all read the newspaper, and we see all of the things about politics and media and personality. Do facts and evidence matter in this process?
Doug Elmendorf:
Oh, yes. I think the facts and evidence matter a great deal, even when that’s not immediately apparent from reading the newspaper or watching a morning show on TV. Of course, facts and evidence are crucial to making policies that have the effects that we aim for. And I think policymakers pay a lot of attention to facts and evidence.
But they also, and I think appropriately, pay attention to politics. Remember that what the facts and evidence can tell you is, if we tried policy A, certain things would happen, and if we tried policy B, certain other things would happen. But the evidence alone doesn’t tell you whether to pick policy A or policy B, that depends on what outcomes one is trying to achieve, what criteria one uses, what one values more than something else.
And that’s a decision that appropriately comes down to politics, in the best sense of that word, which is that our elected representatives should be listening to their constituents and understanding what those constituents want. And when politics is done well, it is the way in which those different views are pulled together by a decisionmaker to choose among policies, understanding what their effects would be from the evidence.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
It seems to me we kind of live at a rather contradictory moment in this process. On the one hand, as you know well, there’s probably been never before more attention to the role of evidence in policymaking. But on the other hand, if you read the front page of the paper, you also know that we live in the most polarized times in your and my lifetime, and that people are increasingly inclined to only believe the facts and evidence coming to them from people they already agree with. So which is it? Am I getting this right?
Doug Elmendorf:
Well, I think you are right to say this is both the best of times and the worst of times for evidence and policymaking. On the positive side, we have more evidence than ever. The rise of big data and a set of tools for aggregating data and interpreting data has given us windows to understand the world, to see the world that we didn’t have before.
But it is also true, as you say, that evidence and facts are in dispute in many occasions. And I think we ought to be very concerned about that. What I said earlier about politics when we do it well or politics at its best is the aggregation of people’s views. But politics at its worst is not that. And in some ways, we have politics at its worst, in some cases, today.
Part of, I think, the skepticism about facts and evidence is a view by some people that the purveyors of evidence have not been straight with other people, that, in particular, people who are often called elite have used their control over the levers of power to benefit themselves. And I don’t think that’s a totally fair critique, but I do think those of us who’ve had the chance to sit where you and I have had a chance to sit in the government and in research organizations need to take that sort of concern very seriously.
We need to be very sure of the work we’re doing at Harvard Kennedy School or at the Urban Institute and government agencies is designed to help a broad range of our fellow Americans and not just to support narrow interest, including our own narrow interests.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
So in some ways, you’re really talking about trust, right? How is it that we can trust expertise, sort of sources that are traditionally looked to for authoritative views, when we have come to understand that all of us have some kind of perspective or bias that at least goes to how we filter information, what questions we ask of the information? So how do we build broader trust in the kind of evidence that policymakers need to make?
Doug Elmendorf:
Well, I think part of the answer is to have humility and to show that. To say that when we think that policy A will have certain effects, when I was director with the Congressional Budget Office, we tried sometimes to talk about the uncertainty surrounding your estimates because we would do some rather complicated piece of analysis and then conclude that a bill would increase or reduce the budget deficit by $73.4 billion.
And that was just, the custom was to report to that level of precision. But all of us who created the estimates understood that that was 73.4 plus or minus 20 or 30 or 40 depending on how novel the proposal was. And I think we tried, and I think people at CBO are continuing to try to convey that uncertainty, so to make it clear that we are doing our best, but that will leave a lot of openness.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
One of the things that I think has been particularly challenging is the public perception that the academy has a particular tilt to it. I’m curious how you are trying to teach your students to learn to contend with people whose views are different than their own. This is a skillset that, I think, our media environment has actually underdeveloped, maybe even created disincentives for, and it makes it harder and harder to have civil conversations across disagreements about evidence or values.
Doug Elmendorf:
Absolutely. So at the Kennedy School, as at many universities, our students, faculty, and staff members are much more on the left of American politics than on the right. And I’ve often said here that if we had more strong conservative voices at the Kennedy School, that would be empowering for our conservative students and bracing for our liberal students, and both groups would be better off as a result.
And so we have quite a few conservative guests come and speak in the forum. The latest round of resident fellows at our Institute of Politics was just announced. There are two former Republican congressmen in that group, but that does not fully counterbalance the political tendencies of most of the faculty and students and staff. And it is very important that all of us learn to open our minds to views that we may find wrong, even abhorrent, when we first hear them.
And that, I think, has both moral need and a practical need. The moral need is that we should treat other people with respect, and certainly ones who’ve come into our learning community, we need to at least give some benefit of the doubt that they are also working for the good of the world as they see it. And we need to at least listen to that to start with. But also it’s very important practically, anybody who wants to win a debate, win a legal case, prevail in a negotiation, all have to understand the other side’s perspective in order to make their best case.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
These are really hard challenges I think most institutions, whether they’re of learning or evidence providers or others, are thinking about. And it’s great to see that this is being more carefully considered both on the being thoughtful about others and on the making space for listening.
Doug Elmendorf:
Can I add one thing, Sarah? I think there’s an important way in which the consideration and the freedom to speak actually work together. There can be moments of conflict, but some, like our colleagues here at Harvard laid out a few years ago, the point of free speech is to have a lot of voices offered.
And so the more one can make the environment one that does not feel personally dangerous for some people, the more their voices will be part of the conversation. So having, I think, a “safe enough space” is the words of Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan, having enough sense of safety can encourage and support the speech.
And so I don’t want to make it be the impression, I think these things are always at cross purposes. I think they are in some ways complimentary, but again, only if we think of the responsibilities as well as our rights when we engage with others.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
So I wanted to switch that conversation to places where, you just said it yourself, most things don’t get done, whether you’re in city council or US Capitol, unless there’s some kind of compromise, somebody is not getting everything they want. I get asked literally daily, “Sarah, you must be so despondent. Where do we see the potential for progress? Where are there issues where we think we can make change?” What’s on your list? How do you answer that question, which I’m sure you get as well.
Doug Elmendorf:
I do get it. Part of what always gives me hope is the students I get to meet here at the Kennedy School. When you look at the talents and the dedication of an awful lot of younger people to help make the world better, you can’t not have hope and some optimism about what will happen, but it takes a lot of work by a lot of people.
And as you and I know from our days in the policy trenches, not every day is forward movement, but if you didn’t try every day to move forward, then surely our world will not get better. And so we all have to just stay at it. And part of what I say to students when they ask me this kind of question is, I tell them they need to be patient and to persevere, not be patient to the point of passivity, of course. They need to persevere in what they’re doing.
They need to be patient and realize that there will be a lot of days when success won’t come their way, but it will over time. I think there are a lot of ways in which our society, our world are getting better despite the frustrations that I and you and many people have. And I think that will continue, but it really requires everybody to put their shoulder to the wheel and help.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
So let me ask you, are there some domain areas where you feel like we have some real potential for progress? Obviously, you know I’m a big housing policy geek. Our housing markets are really in somewhat of disarray. We had a great deal of learning loss through the pandemic and our educational institutions are under great stress. Do you have areas where you think we can actually come together to find solutions?
Doug Elmendorf:
Yes, I think so; 2024 is a presidential campaign year. Those tend not to be great years for big policy advances. But I think on housing for example, there’s I think a growing understanding that we as a country are desperately in need of more housing and a growing understanding that there are some important obstacles created by well-meaning but counterproductive policies.
And a number of those policies can be changed at the local level or the state level. So we have a lot of opportunities to start making a difference. And so if you asked me about the next five years, I would be bullish on our increasing housing supply. I think there are some areas that compromise or progress seems just always around the bend. I would mention immigration as one of those. I’ve worked on it when I worked for the Congress, and I am frustrated that more progress can’t be made.
I think it could be in principle, but I don’t think we’re on the cusp of doing that. So I’m bullish on housing. I think I’m bullish on health care. We’re not good at saving money everywhere. But we found some ways to cut back on the spending that I don’t think have been bad for people’s health. There are a number of provisions, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act, that I think were real advances in health care policy.
They’ve been overshadowed by other elements of that legislation. And I think more can happen in that direction. I think that there is a lot of progress coming in the administration, the management of governments. I have a colleague here who says, this is Steve Goldsmith, former mayor of Indianapolis, deputy mayor of operations for New York City, and Steve has said something to the effect of, “The rise of big data and predictive analytics and so on is the best chance to improve public management in 100 years.”
And I think that’s right. I think we are going to see a transformation not as fast as we would like, but we will see a transformation in how governments deliver services. And that’s very important for trust, to go back to your use of the word “trust” earlier. People are frustrated about their government in part because of big mistakes, some of US policy in the Middle East, some of US policy toward financial institutions, there are some big mistakes, but I think some of the frustration and lack of trust comes from small problems.
It’s the line at the DMV. It’s the inability to navigate a government website. And I think we can make a lot of progress. It’ll be both good by itself for people’s lives and also will help to build confidence in our political system.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
You went to one of the places that I was going to go, which is, I do think that we talk about the rise of AI and AI’s capacity to create ways that some can manage and manipulate information, and also the potential of it to streamline and improve processes, from enrolling people in public benefits to helping us to better understand how to do the same public-sector service in less time and less money.
But I do worry about, as you think about the public sector’s capacity to be at the cutting edge of tools like that, how are you thinking about how we can ensure that government doesn’t end up being, or public policy doesn’t end up being incapable of catching up with technological innovation that’s being driven by the private sector, and in some cases, even by bad actors?
Doug Elmendorf:
Well, again, I think that’s a legitimate concern. I think we have woefully underfunded the basic provisions of government services, that efforts to restrain government spending at the federal level, which had been largely about, as you know, the aging of the population and rising health care costs, had ended up coming out of the ability to actually deliver government services effectively.
And I think that’s been hugely wrong. And there’s a risk at this effort to trim government spending is going to come out of the underlying capability of government rather than deciding particular things the government should not do as much of. At the same time, I know a lot of people who work for governments at all levels who are committed to delivering public services better and who are increasingly knowledgeable about these tools.
And we have students at the Kennedy School who are very skilled in these ways, ways that I’m not. And they are taking those skills eagerly to government. So I don’t think it will be as fast as it should be, but I think it’s happening.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
I wanted to ask you, we were talking before about lived experience and how important people’s experience of something can be, sometimes ends up being different than what the numbers show. And you’re one of our leading experts in the US economy, and there has never been a topic about which public experience of the circumstances and the numbers seem to tell very different stories.
As you know very well, we obviously had a period of very high inflation that was very painful for people. But unemployment has stayed, like other than briefly during the pandemic, historically low, and now wage growth has, particularly at the bottom of the income distribution, has started to exceed rising costs.
And yet people’s perceptions are only just beginning to shift. And something about inflation seems to be sticky in how people experience it. Can you talk a little bit about what you think is going on there and whether you think public perception will start to match the experience? Or maybe they’re right, and all of us who just look at economic releases are actually not really understanding what it’s like to live in America.
Doug Elmendorf:
I do think there’s something to the, people don’t look at the latest six month reading of some particular price index that I might follow for technical reasons. They’re thinking, “Boy, three or four years ago I could buy lunch for x dollars and now it’s a lot more.” And that’s not an unreasonable view for them to have.
So I think that is certainly part of it. I think another part is that there’s a lot of legitimate uncertainty in the world and that makes people nervous. Given the polarization of our politics, a lot of people are very concerned about the other person winning the election in November. We have wars, terrible, tragic wars raging in multiple places. So there is bad news, and I don’t think people are so good, nor should they be, at walling off their perceptions of the economy from their perceptions of the world as it stands.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
So I want to ask you, you’ve talked many, many times about your belief in the value to your school of having a diverse student body across many different dimensions. We’ve talked about ideology, obviously, identity. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decisions on affirmative of action, how are you thinking about strategies to ensure that the student body of the Kennedy School reflects all of these different dimensions of diversity?
Doug Elmendorf:
Well, remember that the Supreme Court didn’t say it was wrong to look for diversity in educational institution. What it said, this is the layman’s version, not the lawyer’s version, the layman’s version was, it’s wrong to presume that one can achieve that diversity by looking at people of a particular race. But the decision very explicitly left open the value of schools reading applications and judging on an individual basis whether somebody would bring something distinctive to the school without regard to their race.
And so, of course, Harvard is complying with the Supreme Court ruling, and we are very carefully not looking at anything, looking at racial or other racial identity markers, but we are still looking, and my colleagues are reading applications right now for students who can bring different perspectives to the school. And this covers a number of dimensions, but we want people who can say something else that will cause a class discussion to be broader and richer. And that’s what we’ve done before, in ways, and we’re doing that now in ways that are fully complying with the Supreme Court decision.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
So, I always ask every guest on this podcast the same question. We started this conversation by talking about your view that high-quality evidence is important to get to better decisions that can improve people’s lives. Do you have a good example of evidence in action where it really made a difference so that we can, sort of, move from the theoretical to the practical in this?
Doug Elmendorf:
We saw in the wake of the financial crisis a dozen or more years ago that stimulative fiscal policy—tax cuts and spending increases—could help to put people back to work. But we didn’t do very much of that relative to the scale of the problem then. And people ended up being unemployed for sometimes very long times.
That lesson, I think, was taken to heart, and in the COVID pandemic, and right after, as the pandemic was easing, a lot of stimulus fiscal policy was deployed. And as a result, as you’ve noted, the unemployment rate came right back down very quickly and has stayed low. Now they put too much fiscal stimulus into the system without enough monetary policy slowing.
So we had a burst of inflation, for that reason and others. But still, I think the key part of the lesson, which is that we have tools to prevent prolonged high unemployment, and it would be good if we use those tools. I think that lesson was taken from the evidence of what happened before, and all the historical evidence as well, and put to very good use.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
Evidence helps us, is what I hear you saying, to understand something new, and it changes our behavior. Sometimes we agree what to do next, sometimes we don’t, but it absolutely makes a difference. And that’s why the work that you and my colleagues do and your students will be doing over many years, I think, remains important. Doug, it’s fun to be with you. It’s good to do this again, and I’m really grateful for you for spending time with us on Evidence in Action.
Doug Elmendorf:
Thank you, Sarah. It’s been great to talk with you. Good luck with the rest of these sessions.
Sarah Rosen Wartell:
Join us next time on Evidence in Action as we have conversations about important ways to drive change with our talented and fabulous guests. If you’d like to learn more about us, go to our website at urban.org. You could also follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This has been Evidence in Action, created by the Urban Institute and Pod People. I’m your cohost, Sarah Rosen Wartell. Thanks.