Rethinking Social and Economic Policy Systems

As the world, and the United States in particular, confronts the challenges of climate change, societal inequity, and institutional fragility, as well as the new frontiers of technology and human well-being, have we designed our social and economic systems to effectively address these convergences?

Modernizing social and economic systems comes with modernizing the policy analysis that informs how these systems work. However, big questions remain about whether our policy framework, methods, and tools are being developed in ways that offer sustainable solutions.

For instance, has policy analysis informed systems to effectively handle twin issues such as

• advancing national economic competitiveness with the ability to live affordably
• adopting artificial intelligence across economic sectors while preserving the fundamentals of humanity
• maintaining a viable social safety net amid disruptions in demography and migration
• supporting our health and longevity with technological and biological innovations while not exacerbating inequity?

The answer, quite simply, is not yet. Through an unprecedented integration effort across RAND’s social and economic policy research—Education and Labor, Health Care, and Social and Economic Well-Being—and linkages with national and global security, RAND is uniquely addressing these questions. Our integrated approach allows us to break out of siloed and single intervention thinking that has traditionally dwarfed the disciplines that inform policy analysis.

Transforming RAND's Approach to Addressing Social and Economic Policy Challenges

Through the Social and Economic Policy Rethink, RAND is embarking on a series that

• conducts deeper analysis of an interconnected issue, arraying the drivers, primary impacts, and secondary impacts of policy choices
• creates an accessible way for policymakers and policy influencers to understand the contours of where an issue is heading and a way to think about that issue
• develops products that provide frameworks and roadmaps for decisionmakers to craft plans and policies that account for within- and cross-sector dimensions of a complex issue.

The first volume, to be released in a series of short reports and visual tools in fall 2024, addresses the question “How will the pace of adoption and choices to take on artificial intelligence affect diverse economic sectors and thus U.S. national well-being?”

The Rethink pulls insights from many RAND efforts, such as

• Systems Transition Applied Research initiative
• the RAND Budget Model
• RAND Lowy Family Middle-Class Pathways Center
• the Economics and National Security Initiative
• RAND's work on national renewal.

Initial funding for the Rethink effort has been contributed by members of the Social and Economic Policy Advisory Board, in anticipation of identifying additional support for future work on this critically important initiative.