Good public policy can vastly improve people’s lives, while bad policy can lead to terrible suffering, vlog Dean Doug Elmendorf says. The difference lies in how it's made and implemented.
FEATURING Douglas Elmendorf
41 MINUTES AND 03 SECONDS
Public policy has great power, both to improve people’s lives if it is planned and executed well and to cause significant suffering if it is not, says Harvard Kennedy School Dean Doug Elmendorf, who will step back from his post this summer to resume teaching full time. In this episode, Elmendorf talks to PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli about the crucial role policy plays in everyday life, the often-imperfect ways it gets made, and the factors that shape it—including politics, values, education, and communication. He also addresses the issue of public distrust in policy advice and the vital role that values play in policymaking and educating public leaders, even when those values—including diversity, inclusion, and economic justice—are under attack by some in the political sphere. “Our job is to enunciate our values, and to explain how those values can help us serve the world,” he says. Elmendorf became dean of vlog in 2015 after a career steeped in policy research and formulation, especially involving his chosen field of economics. He has worked as the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department, an assistant director of research at the Federal Reserve Board, and a senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. As dean, he’s seen the school through a campus expansion, the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing polarization and attacks on government and higher education in the public sphere, and the current domestic political fallout from the conflict between Gaza and Israel. And he’s done it all while diversifying the school’s community of students and scholars and affirming the important role of training public leaders and developing workable policy solutions to big public challenges.
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Episode Notes
Douglas Elmendorf was named dean and the Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School in 2015 and will step down to join the faculty full time this summer. He had previously served as the director of the Congressional Budget Office, assistant director of the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board, deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department, and a senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. In those policy roles, he worked on budget policy, health care issues, the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy, Social Security, income security programs, financial markets, macroeconomic analysis and forecasting, and a range of other topics. He has also worked as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard. He earned his PhD and AM in economics from Harvard University and his AB summa cum laude from Princeton University.
Ralph Ranalli of the vlog Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of vlog PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.
Editorial support for PolicyCast is provided by Nora Delaney, Robert O’Neill, and James Smith of the vlog Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Design and graphics support is provided by Lydia Rosenberg, Delane Meadows, and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team.
Preroll: PolicyCast explores research-based policy solutions to the big problems we’re facing in our society and our world. This podcast is a production of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Intro (Doug Elmendorf): I would like policymakers to be straight with the public. Of course, people will be boosters for their own preferred policies, but I'd love to have them occasionally say, I understand this policy is not going to solve every problem in the world. It'll have some downsides, but on balance it's good and here's why I support it. And I would like policymakers to talk with experts in an appropriately constructive, critical way, which is to say, not just to listen and take notes and follow, but to ask questions, to ask questions designed to get at the truth most effectively. And then to use that in what they do. And then I would encourage people to listen to public leaders with some empathy for the difficulty of making good policy. There are not easy solutions for any of the big problems in the world, but also I think the public should be appropriately demanding. They should expect their leaders to be straight with them, to work hard on policies that can help improve people's lives.
Intro (Ralph Ranalli): Welcome to the Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast. I’m your host, Ralph Ranalli. If you’re a regular listener, you already know that public policy is our reason for being here at PolicyCast. We take deep dives into evidence-based policy ideas, the data and the researchers behind them, the people they are trying to help, and the problems they’re trying to solve. What we don’t get to do very often is discuss policy itself—the crucial role it plays in our everyday lives, the often-imperfect ways it gets made, why more people don’t trust it, and the role that things like politics, values, education, and communication play in its formulation. That’s why I’m so glad that Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf has agreed to come on and talk about all those things. Doug, who is also the Donald K. Price Professor of Public Policy, became dean of vlog in 2015 after a career steeped in policy research and formulation, mostly involving his chosen field of economics. He has worked as the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury, an assistant director of research at the Federal Reserve Board, and a senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. As dean, he’s seen the school through a campus expansion, the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing polarization and attacks on government and higher education in the public sphere, and the current domestic political fallout from the conflict between Gaza and Israel—all while diversifying the school’s community of students and scholars and affirming the important role of training public leaders and developing workable policy solutions to big public challenges. He's stepping down at the end of this semester to rejoin the Kennedy School faculty— with a stop here at the PolicyCast studios along the way.
Ralph Ranalli: Doug, welcome to PolicyCast.
Doug Elmendorf: Thank you, Ralph. It's great to be with you.
Ralph Ranalli: Congratulations on completing your tenure—almost—as dean. I was reading that you said the job has been, quote, even more enlightening, challenging, and rewarding than you had imagined. As I read it, I imagined an emphasis on the word challenging, because you saw us through COVID and now you're seeing us through the domestic political fallout from the Israel-Gaza conflict. Do they give graduate school deans hazard pay? How are you doing?
Doug Elmendorf: I'm doing fine, thank you. And I'd emphasize each word in that expression. I've loved doing this job. It's been terrific. It has also been hard. And among the deans, there was joking that COVID years should count at least twice. I've done more than almost nine years. But what makes these jobs challenging is also what makes them exciting, which is being part of such a vibrant intellectual community of people who are deeply committed to our mission. And that is both what makes it hard because all these forces in the world affect us and we have to deal with them and respo