EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY

Better public policies can lead to a higher standard of living and trust in public institutions. The purpose of this article is to provide a conceptual framework for the idea of evidence-based policymaking. The fundamental problem of decision-making by policy officials is uncertainty about the future effect of public policy, and it is possible to analyze uncertainty with the so-called von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theory. In the application of utility theory, evidence-based policymaking has the potential to facilitate decision-making. The article describes the hierarchy of evidence (levels 1, 2 and 3) on the effectiveness of public policies and provides examples of policy evaluations – evidence level 1 in the Republic of Croatia. Furthermore, a survey of public finance experts on the topic of public policy evaluation is conducted in the Republic of Croatia. Two findings emerge, first, the practice of public policy evaluation is sporadic, and second, at the undergraduate, graduate or doctoral level of the eight public universities in Croatia, economists and political scientists are not taught microeconometric public policy evaluation (evidence level 1). Stronger emphasis on the practice of public policy evaluation has potential to lead to increased standard of living and trust in public institutions, however, in order to achieve this, stronger demand for evaluations is required, and then current and future experts should be trained on how to conduct public policy evaluations according to international standards.