No doubt. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced there is much evidence that 'data' is the answer. Everyone seems to be able to take what the want from data. If anything, it seems that our 'policies' or 'solutions' should be subjected to more scrutiny, proportional with the size of their intended effects. We tend to focus upon the reasons for specific policies, but the policies themselves don't face as much skepticism.
What kind of scrutiny, though? We act as if economics is a science, rather than the entrail-scrivening it is. Certainly there are trends but there's no more probability or certainty in economics than there is in roulette. More than that we're dealing with a system of such complexity and unprecedented mechanics that the only thing modeling gives you is overconfidence. I just did a quick googling on "six sigma events" in finance and we've had four or five since 2008... and statistically, the odds of one are two in a billion. An economist would call these unprecedented times. A statistician would call them poorly modeled. So whose scrutiny shall we use? 'cuz all the "experts?" they're the ones calling the shots. And the proletariat? They're the ones who want to build a wall on the Mexican border and leave the EU.
Well every time you change the rules you have a "six sigma event" and we have had a lot of rule changes as of late to keep this bubble going. Logically you look at our economic hand and its really shit but its hard to apply logic when at any point the rules can change so drastically that you may not even be playing the same game anymore. Bailouts, Tarp, ZIRP, NIRP all these are changes in the way the financial game is scored. Investments and hedges that were winners under the old rules are total loosers under the new ones.
I agree somewhat... data is just a bunch of numbers, but context and underlying assumptions and expected effects are what make the data meaningful, but that is where the differences are: we may ask agree that X is X, but we don't agree about what it should be or whether it's significant. I think "more scrutiny" is no different politically than "just look at the data." It's all about how people interpret everything and what they believe is important. Are you getting at how a policy may have good arguments for it, but the implementations are hardly looked at before they are passed, tend to have a lot of pork, and plenty of unintended consequences? I agree that there is a problem there. But if everything can be stopped by someone saying "what about this effect you didn't consider? I know it will be terrible!" then nothing would get done at all.I'm not convinced there is much evidence that 'data' is the answer. Everyone seems to be able to take what the want from data.