Evidence-Based Policy

• Provides general advice, illustrated across a range of domains, including development economics, education, child welfare, international AIDS policies and business.
• Ideal for policy makers and analysts who are not experts in the sciences and statistics.
• Offers compelling insights into major policy examples like California's massive effort to reduce the size of elementary school classes and the Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Program.

Readership: Students and scholars of Public Policy and Public Administration; policy makers; policy analysts; planners; elected officials; with a crossover audience of students of education, social welfare, and criminal justice.

Nancy Cartwright, Professor of Philosophy, LSE and UCSD, and Jeremy Hardie, Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences, LSE

Nancy Cartwright is Professor of Philosophy at UC-San Diego and London School of Economics. Jeremy Hardie is an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford and a Fellow of King's College London; he is also Vice President of the Royal Economic Society, and was Chairman of the WH Smith Group from 1992 to 2010.

"Refreshing and insightful, this book should be read by all those who inhabit the boundaries between policy, evidence and uncertainty." - James Wilsdon, Times Higher Education

"Cartwright and Hardie have produced an admirably clear and immensely practical guide on the use of evidence in policy making." - Ray Pawson, Journal of Social Policy

"Using evidence to inform public policy seems like the natural, smart, and effective thing to do. But acting on this intuition can be fraught with complexity and can lead to decisions that are neither smart nor effective. Evidence-Based Policy is the primer we have been waiting for, and with its marvelous blend of theory and examples provides compelling evidence that improved decision making is possible." - Michael Feuer, Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at The George Washington University, and author of Moderating the Debate: Rationality and the Promise of American Education

"Evidence-based policy is an enormously serious step in the long, steady improvement of bringing scientific knowledge to bear on public policy. But EBP is not as simple as it is often presented. This is a guide-unprecedented in its rigor and accessibility-to why it is easy to get EBP wrong and why it matters to get it right." - Kenneth Prewitt, Former Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, and Chair of the National Research Council Committee on The Use of Social Science Knowledge in Public Policy

"This books sparkles with intelligence. It develops a subtle argument lucidly and accessibly about the role of evidence in policy. It is a powerful antidote to the simplistic idea that policy simply needs to listen to the 'facts' about' what works.' It explains what is really involved in injecting evidence effectively into the formation of social policy. Essential reading for anyone who aspires to rational policy-making." - Mike Hough, Professor of Criminal Policy, Birkbeck, University of London

"Chock full of accessible examples, this book explains clearly and cogently what's involved in making intelligent use of evidence in developing social policy. It should be essential reading for all wanting to contribute to effective evidence-based policy." - Nick Tilley, author of Crime Prevention and co-author of Realistic Evaluation

"This well-written book reflects many of the central ideas that underlie my Reports on Child Protection in England. It combines rigorous theory with a valuable profusion of tips and case studies to give practical advice on how to think about what evidence you really need." - Eileen Munro, author of the U.K. Government commissioned 2011 independent review of child protection in England

Acknowledgments
Preface: Do You Want to Read this Book? Putting our Conclusions First
Part I: Getting Started: From `It Worked There' to `It Will Work Here'.
Chapter I.A: What's in This Book and Why
Chapter I.B: The Theory that Backs up What We Say
Part II: Paving the Road from 'There' to 'Here'
Chapter II.A: Support Factors: Causal Cakes and their Ingredients
Chapter II.B: Causal Roles: Shared and Unshared
Part III: Strategies for Finding What You Need to Know
Chapter III.A: Where We are and Where We are Going
Chapter III.B: Four Strategies
Part IV: RCTs, Evidence-Ranking Schemes, and Fidelity
Chapter IV.A: Where We are and Where We are Going
Chapter IV.B: What are RCTs Good For?
Chapter IV.C: Evidence-Ranking Schemes, Advice Guides, and Choosing Effective Policies
Chapter IV.D: Fidelity
Part V: Deliberation is not Second Best
Chapter V.A: Where We are and Where We are Going
Chapter V.B: Centralization and Discretion
Part VI: Conclusion
Appendix I: Representing Causal Processes
Appendix II: The Munro Review
Appendix III: CCTV and Car Theft
Notes
References
Index