New policy brief by Karina Bugarin: “Crisis Control: The Use of Simulations for Policy Decision-Making” in the Policy Center for the New South

Karina Bugarin (Secretariat for Economic Development, State of São Paulo, Brazil) has published the policy brief “Crisis Control: The Use of Simulations for Policy Decision-Making” in the Policy Center for the New South.

Policy brief PB 20-38, coauthored with Eduardo A. Haddad (FEA/USP) “explores the use of simulations in policy decision- making in the Brazilian State of São Paulo in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic” and highlights the fundamental “need for timely decision-making and the role evidence plays in guiding high-level decision-makers amidst a crisis”.

Please read the executive summary below and the entire policy brief here.

https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/crisis-control-use-simulations-policy-decisionmaking

Executive Summary

In face of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, use of evidence may be key to timely and precise decision-making.This policy brief explores the use of simulations in policy decision- making in the Brazilian State of São Paulo in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We draw briefly on the literature on evidence-based public policy to highlight the exacerbated need for timely decision-making and the role evidence plays in guiding high-level decision- makers amidst a crisis. We present examples of simulations that can substantiate top- level decision making, such as the assessment of the potential daily sectoral and regional economic costs of control strategies for mitigating the effects of COVID-19. Finally, the essential contextual elements of governance for informational use are provided as a set of recommended tools for policymakers.

About Mauricio Bugarin

Mauricio Soares Bugarin is full professor at the Economics Department of the University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 and is currently Leader of the Economics and Politics Research Group (CNPq-UnB). From 2006 to 2011 he was full professor of Economics at Insper Institute, São Paulo, Brazil, where he served as the director of undergraduate studies in Economics and created the joint degree program in Economics and Business Administration. Prof. Bugarin is a research fellow of the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) and served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Latin American Chapter of the Econometric Society from 2007 to 2011. He has produced numerous research articles published in peer reviewed journals, including the Journal of Mathematical Economics, Oxford Academic Papers, Public Choice, and Social Choice and Welfare; a book on the control of public expenditure in Brazil published by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation; several academic book chapters; and has received several academic prizes including Brazilian National Treasure Secretariat Prizes (Public Finance), a National Health Economics Prize, and the Haralambos Simeonides Prize for the best article in Economics published in a year by a Brazilian author. Prof. Bugarin’s main interests include public economics, public finance and the relationship between economics and politics. He regularly teaches PhD courses in game theory and mechanism design, the economics of incentives and information and positive political economics.

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