Collective decision-making under uncertainty: Why government policy paid little attention to neoclassical economic approach?

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Why government policy paid little attention to neoclassical economic approach?

Chris Dillow asked.

The same reasons why results from non-market valuation didn't seem to play a major role in environmental decision-makings: 1) policy is suppose to consider multiple goals and neo-classical economics has efficiency as its major goal, 2) the decision-making process is not entirely transparent and it is hard to document/tell the weight of the economic results.

HT: Tim Harford.

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My name is Shuang Liu and I work for CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences as a research scientist. Three key words that summarize my background are: problem-solving, the science-policy interface, and interdiciplinarity.

Trained as an ecological economist as a PhD student (Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont), I take solving real-world problems as the ultimate goal of my research (and yes, they did tell me publication is also important). So I have been working at the science-policy interface (so far mostly in the areas of ecosystem services and biological invasions) with my knowledge and training in biology, ecology, economics, public participation, and group facilitation.

Looking into the future, what intrigues me most is how we make collective decisions under uncertainty. Just think about our experience so far with GMOs, biological invasions, and of course climate change... This blog records the journal of my research in this direction.