Framework for Analyzing Policies

The government is terrible at many things. But it has also done other things extremely well. Like polio eradication and conducting elections on massive scales. Is there any pattern? Is the government good at certain types of activities? Which ones? And can it avoid the other kinds?

 

Pritchett and Woolcock came up with a model to analyze just those questions. It involves splitting proposed activities into a 2 x 2 grid – one axis is the action (Discretionary or Non-Discretionary); the other axis is the number of transactions involved (Huge aka Intensive or Few aka Non-Intensive): 

The bottom left corner (Policies) is about actions that require discretion but are not done often. Examples include changing tax rates or setting eligibility criteria or location of dams. These are choices and decisions that have to be made, but since they aren’t done often, in theory, a government could use the relevant experts to make the right decision most of the time. But like any discretionary decision, policies can turn out to be wrong, experts or no experts.

 

The opposite to Policies is the upper right corner (Programmes). They are done a huge number of times, but they are/can be done by “script”. If the right set of rules and mechanisms is identified, in theory, they can work very well. But if the “script” is flawed, then the outcome will obviously be bad. Examples include mass vaccination programmes like polio and COVID-19.

 

The bottom right corner (Procedures, rules) involves setting a “script” again, but it doesn’t get applied too often. Again, as with Programmes, if the right set of rules and mechanisms is identified, in theory, they can work well. But if the “script” is flawed, then the outcome will be bad. Since the frequency of these transactions is low, either outcome - benefit or harm - is low.

 

The last box, the upper left one (Practices) is where discretionary choices as well as the usage/exercise of that choice are both high. The paper says:

“(Practices) provide the biggest headache for even the most astute and well-intentioned practitioner, because they are intrinsically incompatible with the logic and imperatives of large-scale, routinized, administrative control.”

These are the ones that are most likely to fail or have bad outcomes.

 

The paper then classifies different activities under various public service categories into this 2 x 2 matrix. 

It is a certainly a good framework to analyze which kinds of activities governments are more (or less) likely to succeed at.