Public Policy Forecasting - Special Interest Groups
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The Public Policy Forecasting special interest group (publicpolicyforecasting.com) has been established to provide a platform for the rational analysis of governments' policies.

Forecasting is more important for the public sector than for the private sector because public policy involves coercion, can result in large changes, and is not guided by prices. The injunction to "first, do no harm" is therefore appropriate for public policy decision making. Scientific forecasting can help decision makers to choose the best policies.

The publicpolicyforecasting.com pages will include evidence-based assessments of the forecasting procedures behind major policy initiatives such as occur when policies change in areas such as gun control, capital punishment, climate change, immigration, public construction projects, and minimum wage laws. The primary means of analysis will be forecasting audits.

Audits are sought by those who prepare forecasts relevant to policy changes. In addition, audits are invited by people other than those involved with the forecast.

Audits completed to date

The Forecasting Problem

To determine the best policies to implement now to deal with the social or physical environment of the future, a policy maker should obtain forecasts and prediction intervals for each of the following:

  1. What will the physical or social environment of interest be like in the future in the absence of any policy change?
  2. If reliable forecasts of can be obtained and the forecasts are for substantive changes, then it would be necessary to forecast the effects of the changes on the health of living things and on the health and wealth of humans.
  3. If reliable forecasts of the effects of changed future environment on the health of living things and on the health and wealth of humans can be obtained and the forecasts are for substantial harmful effects, then it would be necessary to forecast the costs and benefits of alternative policy proposals. For a proper assessment, costs and benefits must be comprehensive.
  4. If reliable forecasts of the costs and benefits of alternative policy proposals can be obtained and at least one proposal is predicted to lead to net benefits, then it would be necessary to forecast whether the policy changes can be implemented successfully.

Guidelines

The guidelines for the SIG are the same as those that apply to the forecastingprinciples.com site as a whole. In addition, all posted peer review must include the authors' names, position, email, and any relationship that might be construed as being of potential bias.
 

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What's new

Tampa development forecasting audit

We have added a new audit page to the SIG on a Wharton student forecasting audit of the City of Tampa, FL, development forecasting procedures.

"Citizens' audit" of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes report

We have added a link to the NoConcensus.org site's citizens' audit of the United Nations' IPCC "dangerous manmade global warming" report. The link can be found on the Evidence-based Policy Sites and Publications page.

Researchers submission on the lack of scientific forecasting behind the U.S. State Department's latest "Climate Action Report"

Scott Armstrong, Kesten Green, and Willie Soon made a submission titled "Global Warming Alarm Based on Faulty Forecasting Procedures" on the State Department's report:

"Our research findings challenge the basic assumptions of the State Department’s Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report (CAR 2010). The alarming forecasts of dangerous manmade global warming are not the product of proper scientific evidence-based forecasting methods. Furthermore..."

Climate models, forecasting, and politics with legislators in Washington on 9 April

 

Scott Armstrong will be discussing the value of forecasts of global warming and where things are headed in a talk titled "Effects of the global warming alarm: An application of the structured analogies method" at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Washington, D.C. at 1:15 pm on 9 April, 2010.

Global warming alarm analogies forecasting project page now up

 

Is it possible to make useful forecasts about social phenomena such as the alarm over predictions of dangerous manmade global warming? Kesten Green and Scott Armstrong reasoned that it should be possible to do so using the structured analogies method. (In their 2007 paper, Green and Armstrong found that structured analogies provided forecasts that were more accurate than experts’ judgments when applied to the difficult problem of forecasting decisions in conflicts.) The Global Warming Analogies Forecasting Project page is now up on the Public Policy Forecasting SIG pages (PublicPolicyForecasting.com). The page includes a link to the Project working paper and lists 26 situations that have been identified as analogous to the current alarm. To date there are descriptions of six of them available. Kesten and Scott welcome evidence and analysis, especially if it contradicts their own efforts to date.

Have policy makers properly forecast all the costs and benefits of policies intended intended to reduce human CO2 emissions?

Two senior climate scientists think not. To read more about Harvard Astrophysicist Willie Soon and Delaware State Climatologist David Legates analysis of evidence on to what extent people can influence climate, the costs and benefits of changes in climate, and whether carbon trading schemes would lead to CO2 reductions, see the item on the Global Warming Audit page.

History shows manmade global warming alarm to be false – but that harmful policies will persist.


Using a forecasting method that they have developed, Dr. J. Scott Armstrong from the Wharton School and Dr. Kesten C. Green from the International Graduate School of Business at the University of South Australia conclude that alarm over “dangerous manmade global warming” is the latest example of a common social phenomenon involving alarming but unscientific forecasts that prove to be wrong. more...

Benchmark forecast for global average temperatures: No change for 100 years

24 October 2009 - In their new paper in a special section of the International Journal of Forecasting on decision making and planning under low levels of predictability, Kesten Green, Scott Armstrong, and Willie Soon asked whether it is possible to make useful forecasts for policy makers about changes in global climate up to 100 years ahead. Their findings and conclusion will surprise many people. more...

Letter to Environmental Protection Agency regarding regulation of greenhouse gases

8 October 2009 - Thirty-five scientists signed a letter addressed to the EPA Administrator, the Honorable Lisa P. Jackson, on October 7 2009 expressing concern that proposed rulemaking on the regulation of greenhouse gases would be based on unscientific forecasting procedures. more...

Climate policy, temperatures, CO2, and alarms

16 July 2009 - Scott Armstrong, Kesten Green, Andreas Graefe, and Willie Soon examined climate change forecasting for public policy decision making in a paper presented at the International Symposium on Forecasting in Hong Kong in June. They found official forecasting efforts unscientific and presented some surprising findings that should help decision makers make decisions that will be better for almost everyone. more...

Climate Change Reconsidered: NIPCC Report

15 July 2009 - Craig Idso and Fred Singer with the help of a team of expert contributors and reviewers have compiled a report of more than 700 pages that examines the evidence on climate change and effects, that provides useful information for forecasters. more...

Forecasting and scheming to trade CO2

11 May 2009 - A Select Committee of the New Zealand government are hearing submissions on the Emissions Trading Scheme. Among the submissions are one by Bob Carter and another by Kesten Green that argue that the Scheme is based on unscientific forecasts of climate change and the cost of the scheme. more...

Public sector forecasting at the ISF

30 April 2009 - Eighteen papers on forecasting for public sector problems have been accepted for the International Symposium on Forecasting in Hong Kong (June 21-24). The papers address forecasting issues in education, employment, hospitals, performance, population, terrorism, and transport. The hot topic is climate and related matters, about which there are eight papers.

BBC interview on polar bear population and climate forecasts

30 April 2009 - Scott Armstrong was interviewed on the BBC "Five Live" show about forecasting the population of polar bears and climate while he was attending the International Conference on Climate Change in New York. more...

Dissenting analysis of climate policy

29 April 2009 - Former OECD Head of Economics and Statistics David Henderson delivered his contrarian analysis at the Oxford Business and Environment Conference "Beyond Kyoto: Green Innovation and Enterprise for the 21st Century". more...

Forecasting the economic impact of new policies

25 April 2009 - There has been little research on how best to forecast the effectiveness of altenative strategies for implementing government policies. It seems reasonable to assume that better forecasts of the effects of policy implementation would lead to better better policies, and better implementation of those policies. Nicolas Savio and Konstantinos Nikolopoulos propose in their working paper an approach that combines two evidence-based forecasting methods: strunctured analogies (Green and Armstrong 2007) and econometric modelling.
 
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The Forecasting Principles site was sponsored by the Marketing Department of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania for the first nine years. The International Institute of Forecasters has been a sponsor since July 2006.