OPINION: Tough questions demand good research

Important issues tend to be difficult, with deeply entrenched opinions and interests. They also attract the attention of media, political leaders, citizens and especially lobbyists. Recently, while explaining the results of two very contentious studies, I was asked who paid for them. That is a fair question, of course, which is why we put the name of the sponsoring organization on the study itself. But it also leads to other questions about the nature of university research—how and why we do what we do.

As a professor, I teach classes, but that is only part of my job. Most professors are also tasked with performing research. Research means different things in different disciplines, but the common feature is that it means discovering things that were previously unknown using the scientific method. I don’t know how most fields of study evaluate their research, but in economics we are judged on only two things; how important are the questions we ask, and how good is our analysis.

I work in an economics and public policy research center. We focus on studying public policy issues that are important to Hoosiers and hopefully to citizens of other states. Importantly, you’ll not hear me refer to the Center for Business and Economic Research as ‘my Center.’ It is not my Center; it belongs to the taxpayers of Indiana who created it 50 years ago.

Over the past half century, we’ve studied lots of issues that impact Hoosiers. In the past decade alone, we’ve done studies on Right-to-Work, school choice, local government consolidation, trade and automation job losses, tax incentives, hospital monopolies and property tax caps. We are surely not afraid to ask tough questions and answer them publicly. As researchers at a public university, that is what we get paid to do.

Nearly all our research involves data, or raw numbers, mostly collected by federal or state governments. The types of questions we ask are straightforward, such as how much would a tax cut change employment and investment in a county. Often, we write math models in computer code to measure the size of these effects. Those answers form the basis of our advice about the effect of a particular policy. Many folks will have an opinion on something like this, but in my experience there’s no quicker way to appear foolish than to opine on empirical matters.

All these things cost money, and we are often paid to do this work. While many of our studies are performed without outside funding, neither I, nor any of my staff, are paid directly for any of the studies we perform. When we are funded, we hire students and pay their tuition, and buy books, faster computers, data and software. A big chunk of whatever money we earn, often half, goes back to the University to pay for our library, heat offices and the myriad other things that keep the school running.

The Center is not a consulting firm. There is nothing wrong with economic consultants. Still, the difference is that a consultancy will answer the questions it is asked, while a university center will insist on choosing the questions we ask and the method for answering them.

This often means foregoing funding from a particular group, but it isn’t because of the reputation of the funder. We turn down more studies than we accept, simply because the question isn’t important enough, we are too busy or we don’t have enough data to answer the questions.

I believe the work we do is important. The more I see of public policy making, the more I am convinced we need better research. We also need citizens and elected officials to read and study these issues. Too often, policymakers learn about issues only from opposing interest groups who work on emotions rather than facts. That rarely serves taxpayers well. I don’t mean to suggest that economists should rule the world, but as John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”