"Evidence-based policymaking" - Inaugural lecture by Prof. Dr. Simona Helmsmüller

Simona Helmsmüller has held the Chair of Economics of Social Protection since September 2022. She is head of the Master's degree program "Social Protection" in the Department of Social Policy and Social Security.

The lecture focused on the interplay between empirical findings and the formulation of social policy. Under the heading "Data Pitfalls", Simona Helmsmüller introduced the complexity of the topic and explained the consequences of simplifying complex relationships. She illustrated this using the example of PISA data from the year 2000, in which a positive correlation between two policy-relevant variables becomes negative when suitable control variables are included. This illustrates that correlations are not a suitable measure for policy decisions, but that causal effects should be measured instead.

In the second thematic block of her presentation "From correlation to causation", she explained how this measurement of causal effects can be achieved with the help of suitable control groups. She used the example of a rigorous evaluation she conducted of a health insurance scheme in Pakistan. Here, she used a regression discontinuity design in which households are compared just below and just above an exogenous cut-off that defines access to health insurance. While the rigorous approach provided robust results, important questions about the impact channels and possible strengths and weaknesses of the policy remained unanswered.

Therefore, in the third part of her presentation, she argued that the collection of empirical evidence should be seen as detective work, with different methodological designs answering different research questions at different points in the policy-making process. Simona Helmsmüller used the 4-phase model for clinical trials and divided the research questions into feasibility, efficacy, effectiveness and long-term effects. She concluded her presentation with an outlook on research and a possible transfer to teaching. 

The lecture was followed by a lively discussion with interested parties. In particular, the difficult political situation in northern Pakistan and its implications for the research project were discussed intensively, as was the question of how to record gender-specific differences as part of the research project.