‘Buyer Beware’: A Case Study of How to Assess the Reliability of Policy Advice

Abstract

This article supports the assessment of policy advice prompted by the ‘servicisation’ issue. Advice to developing countries has long advocated industrialisation. However, structural change since the end of the Cold War has been servicisation, not industrialisation. This, and the lack of work on servicisation with many studies supporting industrialisation, show confirmation bias and problems managing anomalies. Shifts towards policies stressing services exist but are rare. Those using policy advice therefore need ways to manage such issues. This article shows how policy assessment can be done, partly by monitoring gaps between experienced realities and advocated policies, and partly through examination vulnerability to confirmation bias. Here, the latter stems from the standard analytical framework’s use of production functions that relies empirically upon the assumption that constant price sectoral GDP measures ‘output’, but it does not. Assessment of policy can also search for lack of attention by researchers to confirmation bias.