Experimentation in Policy-Design: Insights from the Building Sector

Policy Sciences, Forthcoming

Van der Heijden. J. 2014. Climate and Environmental Governance Network Working Paper, No. 27, Regulatory Institutions Network.

23 Pages Posted: 24 Feb 2014

See all articles by Jeroen van der Heijden

Jeroen van der Heijden

Victoria University of Wellington, School of Government; Australian National University, School of Regulation & Global Governance (RegNet)

Date Written: February 1, 2014

Abstract

The current article questions how experimentation in policy-design plays out in practice. In particular, it is interested in understanding how the content and process of policy-design experiments affect their outcomes. The article does so by building on an original study into 31 real-world examples of experimentation in policy-design in the building sector in Australia, the Netherlands and the United States. All examples aim to improve the environmental sustainability of the building sector. The article finds that these 31 examples have attracted moderate to substantial numbers of participants (policy outcome HO.i), but have not achieved substantial numbers of buildings built or retrofitted with high levels of sustainability (policy outcome HO.ii). By carefully unpacking these policy-designs into a number of key characteristics it finds that this mismatch between the two outcomes may partly be explained by flawed policy-design processes. The article concludes with the main lessons learned, and provides some suggestions on how to improve experimentation in policy-design.

Keywords: Policy-design, policymaking, policy evaluation, experimentation, policy learning

JEL Classification: K32

Suggested Citation

van der Heijden, Jeroen, Experimentation in Policy-Design: Insights from the Building Sector (February 1, 2014). Policy Sciences, Forthcoming, Van der Heijden. J. 2014. Climate and Environmental Governance Network Working Paper, No. 27, Regulatory Institutions Network., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2400208 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2400208

Jeroen Van der Heijden (Contact Author)

Victoria University of Wellington, School of Government ( email )

PO Box 600
Wellington 6140
New Zealand

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.victoria.ac.nz/sog/about/staff/jeroen-vanderheijden

Australian National University, School of Regulation & Global Governance (RegNet) ( email )

Australian National University
Building #8
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200
Australia

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