Lecture 7

Question 1

need 3 things to provide evidence summaries

Answer 1

1. learn what impacts to consider and identify the most important effects
2. gather the evidence
3. communicate that evidence such that it is understood

Question 2

to communicate policy, you want (2 things - tradeoff)

Answer 2

comprehensibility and coverage

Question 3

if graph is packed in with info, we would say (comp. and cov)

Answer 3

it’s good on coverage, but bad on comprehensibility

Question 4

whatever you communicate must be useful and trustworthy, what exactly does that mean

Answer 4

useful: sharing the right information and communicating it in the right way (communicate well graphics)

trustworthy: balanced (present both harms and potential benefits) and accurate (give links and references + be upfront about degree of uncertainty)

Question 5

four main challenges in communicating policy options, which are more complex than individual-level communication:

Answer 5

1. Heterogeneous Impacts: Policies affect different groups in diverse ways. For example, tax reforms may benefit certain income classes while disadvantaging others. It’s challenging to decide which populations and outcomes to highlight, such as local environmental benefits versus international ethical concerns like child labor in cobalt mining. How to represent both winners and losers?
2. Multiple Outcome Scales: Policies have varied impacts (financial, health, environmental, employment), each measured in different terms, making it hard to compare outcomes. Simplifying these into a single metric can mislead, as seen with the UK’s Green Book cost-benefit analysis.
3. Long Timescales: Policy impacts can span generations and vary over time, such as climate change effects. This requires communication that can address these long-term, evolving impacts.
4. Large Uncertainties: Predicting policy outcomes is uncertain due to complex systems and long timescales. Providing fully quantified probabilities is rare, so simpler estimates are used, though often incomplete.
   These challenges complicate balanced communication. Simplifying information risks bias, while including too much detail can overwhelm the audience. Partisan communicators exploit this by simplifying messages to favor their stance, while non-partisan communicators struggle to avoid bias without overloading information. An example is the detailed but complex impact assessment for additional airport runways in South East England, which tries to balance comprehensiveness with accessibility.