New Computational Tools for Longer-Term Policy Analysis The RAND Corporation 1776 Main St. Santa Monica, CA 90401 USA lempert@rand.org http://www.rand.org Abstract: Increased computer capabilities have made possible a new approach to quantitative decision making and policy analysis that matches much more closely the way policy makers and social scientists often think about some of the most challenging decisions governments and other organizations face. Traditional quantitative approaches based on subjective expected utility, originally developed for the very limited computational tools of the 1950s, emphasized the need to summarize available information in a single view of the future leading to a single optimum response. But social scientists well recognize that the world is often best understood through a tangle of contrasting interests, expectations, interpretations, and values. This mismatch between single and multiple views of the future has helped limit the practical application of quantitative tools for decision making under uncertainty for many important policy questions. In particular, longer-term policy questions, where deep uncertainty and a diversity of values become especially salient, have been difficult to address quantitatively. New computational approaches, based on the concept of identifying near-term shaping and hedging strategies that are robust over a wide range of plausible futures and value, now provide a means to close this gap. This talk will describe these new robust decision making approaches and apply them to an archetypal challenge of longer-term decision making -- that of global climate change. Bio: Robert Lempert is a senior scientist at RAND and an expert in science and technology policy, with a special focus in climate change, energy, and the environment. An internationally-known scholar in the field of decision-making under conditions of deep uncertainty, Dr. Lempert is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the National Academy of Science's Climate Research Committee, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Lempert has led studies on climate change policy, the environment, energy, national security strategies, and on science and technology investment strategies for clients that include the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and several multinational firms. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Science degree in physics and political science from Stanford University and a doctorate in applied physics from Harvard University. A Professor of Policy Analysis in the RAND Graduate School, Dr. Lempert is an author of the recent book Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Longer-Term Policy Analysis. |