Best Practices in Applied Economics & Policy Analysis Training Course

Public policy now faces tighter budgets, more demanding citizens and donors who ask for proof that money produced results. Analysts who can translate economic theory into practical appraisal and credible evidence are in short supply, and weak analysis leads to poorly targeted subsidies, unworkable regulation and projects that cannot show their value.

This course gathers the methods and habits that experienced policy economists rely on. Early sessions revisit core microeconomic and macroeconomic concepts as tools rather than theory: incentives, market failures, externalities, public goods and fiscal multipliers. The programme then moves into appraisal techniques, including discounting, shadow pricing, risk and sensitivity testing, and into evaluation methods such as randomised designs, matching and difference-in-differences. A full session is devoted to turning findings into a short, persuasive brief for ministers, boards or funders.

Participants learn through worked examples, guided spreadsheet and software labs and small-group policy clinics based on realistic scenarios from health, agriculture, energy and social protection. Each person completes a draft policy note on a topic from their own workplace by the final day.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Frame a policy problem and identify the economic rationale for intervention.
• Use supply and demand, elasticity and market failure analysis to predict policy effects.
• Carry out cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness appraisal with discounting and sensitivity tests.
• Assess the distributional and fiscal impacts of taxes, subsidies and regulations.
• Select and interpret quantitative methods for estimating the causal impact of a programme.
• Prepare regulatory impact assessments that meet good-practice standards.
• Communicate findings and uncertainty clearly in a policy brief and presentation.

The course is intended for professionals who produce, review or commission economic evidence for decisions, including:

• Economists and policy analysts in ministries and state agencies
• Budget and planning officers in national and county governments
• Researchers in think tanks, universities and policy institutes
• Monitoring, evaluation and research officers in NGOs and donor agencies
• Regulators and competition or utilities authority staff
• Central bank and financial sector analysts
• Programme managers who commission impact studies
• Consultants preparing appraisal and feasibility reports

Participants leave with:

• A reusable cost-benefit model built in a spreadsheet and ready to adapt.
• A decision guide for choosing between appraisal and evaluation methods.
• Practice running and reading basic regression and difference-in-differences output.
• A policy brief template with guidance on charts and plain-language summaries.
• A checklist for stress-testing assumptions and reporting uncertainty.
• A draft policy note on a real issue from their own organisation.

The programme is built around doing analysis rather than listening to it, and uses:

• Short conceptual refreshers followed immediately by worked numerical examples
• Guided spreadsheet and statistical software labs on realistic datasets
• Policy clinics in which small groups appraise a proposal and defend their recommendation
• Critical reading of published evaluations and government impact assessments
• Individual coaching on the policy note each delegate prepares

Delegates who attend the sessions and complete the labs and the policy note exercise are awarded a CPD-accredited Certificate of Completion by Vision Reach Global Consultancy.