Abstract /
The phrase "What gets measured gets managed; and what gets measured gets done" is a ubiquitous phrase in management. Responding effectively to the many challenges of public administration requires recognizing that access to more and better quantitative data is necessary, but an overreliance on quantitative data comes with risks, especially when reforms, policies or programs are highly complex. They typically entail numerous discretionary interactions between multiple agents over long periods of time, while the stakes are high and the specific solutions to solve problems are largely unknown ex ante.
Valentin Seidler dug deep into the most widely trusted demographic and health data available for sub-Saharan Africa. In the absence of reliable census and population data, many African countries and international agencies rely on household surveys for policymaking and development interventions. He found that we cannot blindly assume uniform data quality where it matters most - at the district and village level. Remote villages in particular suffer from increasingly unreliable data, with negative consequences for planning reforms and aid efforts for these populations. (Link to study)
Michael Woolcock’s study focuses on four data related risks and offers four cross-cutting principles for building an approach to the use of quantitative data—a “balanced data suite”—that strengthens problem-solving and learning in public administration. The four principles are: 1) identify and manage the organizational capacity and power relations that shape data management, 2) focus quantitative measures of success on those aspects which are close to the problem, 3) embrace a role for qualitative data, especially for those aspects that require in-depth, context-specific knowledge, and 4) protect space for judgment, discretion, and deliberation in those decision-making domains that inherently cannot be quantified. Practical examples are provided of complex initiatives, and the unwarranted conclusions that can be drawn from assessments of them, when only a single source of data is considered. (Link to study)
BIOS /
Michael Woolcock is Lead Social Scientist in the World Bank's Development Research Group and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. His current research focuses on strategies for enhancing state capability for implementation, on transformations in local social institutions during the development process, and on using mixed methods to assess the effectiveness of "complex" interventions. In addition to more than a hundred journal articles and book chapters, he is the author or co-editor of fourteen books, including Contesting Development: Participatory Projects and Local Conflict Dynamics in Indonesia (with Patrick Barron and Rachael Diprose; Yale University Press, 2011), which was a co-recipient of the 2012 best book prize by the American Sociological Association's section on international development, and Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action (with Matt Andrews and Lant Pritchett; Oxford University Press, 2017). Most recently, he has co-edited three scholarly volumes on case studies, popular culture, and the future of multilateralism, and written a book for a broader audience (International Development: Navigating Humanity’s Greatest Challenge; Polity Press, 2023). An Australian national, he has a PhD in comparative-historical sociology from Brown University.
Valentin Seidler is a political economist, development specialist and former Red Cross professional in international aid. He has worked in Africa, Central / Eastern Europe & the Balkans and Asia. His academic career began in 2011 and has included research stays at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, the CAGE Research Centre in Warwick and the University of Groningen. As a practitioner, Dr. Seidler has managed large multi-stakeholder programs in international development and conflict prevention. As an academic he conducts transdisciplinary research on global political development, state capacity and international development cooperation. Ongoing research explores to which extent household survey data in African countries can be a reliable source for policymaking (with Worldpop UK, University of Edingburgh and Tufts University) and which role individual agents played in institutional reforms in former European colonies when they gained independence (with UC Berkeley, Radboud University Nijmegen and Witten-Herdecke). Valentin Seidler’s work has been financed by the Austrian National Bank (Anniversary Fund) and the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF).