Forty Years of Social Policy and Policy Research - Article Example

Extraneous factors inflict a detrimental effect on policy outcomes. So, experiments set out to assess the nature of such outcomes by isolating them from extraneous influences. The article further enumerates that the Urban Institute, which was designed to carry out economic and social policy research and evaluate myriad programs, now has to deal with a bigger area of more intricate assignments. The search for real understanding has generated a bigger body of research work. Another main point of Solow’s article is that social policies should not be sold as cures for social problems, rather they should seek to reduce the incidence of bothering factors. When this does not happen, small statistical differences result. Small statistical differences translate into little change which leads inevitably leads to a feeling of letdown. An important claim made by Solow is that many social and economic pathologies like crime and poor housing are in part born by the laws of economics. These laws promote impractical outcomes about popular policies, but when the result is not as expected, public disappointment is inevitable.

Reading Solow’s article helped me in getting familiar with the depths of social and economic research. It helped me to understand why it is the economic laws themselves that are in part to be blamed for continual social and economic problems. These laws are designed to put an end to all nagging problems, but they only turn out to foment them. I also agree with the part of Solow’s article that the outcomes of any program are excessively promoted by the government. They are presented to the public as something very attractive or lucrative, but the actual results turn out to be a far cry from the promises made at the start. This leads to mixed feelings of resentment and disappointment in the public. I agree with Solow that every policy should seek to lower the incidence of the problematic issue instead of promising to eliminate it from the face of the earth.