(2023-05-10) Davies Why When What Works Wont Part1

Dan Davies: why/when what works won't (part 1). I’ve mentioned the name of Malcolm Sparrow before

His books on regulation (informed by a previous career as a Detective Chief Inspector in England, as well as in-depth consultancy with things like the Florida Department of Environmental Protection) are not just very interesting studies of the regulatory craft – there is, in my view, a lot of more general insights applicable to all aspects of management and economics.

one of his case studies relates to “port-running” on the Southern border of the USA

It was a difficult problem to solve, given the constraints

In the end, the solution turned out to be to address the essential feature of a quick getaway, by putting “Jersey barriers” (those concrete things they put up at highway construction sites) to create a series of chicanes in the exit from the port

What interests me right now, though, is what happened next …

The Jersey barrier solution had been invented by a small task force of 15 customs officers

The task force’s work was an example of Sparrow’s “problem oriented” strategy – they had identified a specific important problem to solve, and decided beforehand on the measures that they would use to indicate success or failure.

What happened next was that a senior customs executive told Malcolm Sparrow that it was such a great project that they were going to set up small multiregional, multifunctional teams like this all over the country. Which was nice, but Sparrow then asked the question – “what other problems do you have which are roughly of that particular size and scope, then?”. The answer was that the executive wasn’t aware of any, but he was sure they would find some if they looked for them.

But would they?

a year or so later they tended to not only give up on the idea of problem-orientation, but to conclude that it was literally impossible to implement

you have to start from a position of respecting the problem. That means tackling it in its own terms and looking at the unique and particular characteristics which make it a big problem

More to come on this subject, and its application to evidence-based policy, “doing what works” and so on, as well as on Sparrow’s alternative model.