"Economic Policy Consulting – an Austrian Perspective"

According to Badelt, there is a rapidly growing market of institutions in Austria that provide policy advice based on scientific work or prepare facts that can serve as a basis for economic policy decisions.

Especially in this situation, he said, it is crucial for WIFO to emphasise its own public value and to prove the criteria of its scientific quality and integrity. Together with the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), WIFO is currently working on guidelines that will make the financing, methodology, sources and publication rules for studies even more transparent and comprehensible.

For Badelt, the availability of data is an essential pre-condition for serious economic policy advice. It was therefore positive to note that the new Austrian federal government's programme included a commitment to create an "Austrian Micro Data Center". The current legal situation prevents access to individual data, although anonymisation is technically possible.

The presentation was given at the annual conference of the Keynes Society in Karlsruhe. According to its own definition, the Keynes Society has set itself the goal of "promoting the discussion and dissemination of the economic findings of John Maynard Keynes, the most important economist of the 20th century, who lived from 1883 to 1946, and the theories based on them."

Further information about the Keynes Society can be found here.