Second Year Policy Analysis

The second year paper is an integral part of the MPA/ID program. Designed to serve as the students’ final "thesis," the second year paper offers students the opportunity to deploy the skills acquired during the program, integrate their course work, and provide specific policy recommendations in the context of a concrete developmental problem. For many students, it is also an opportunity to extend and deepen the work undertaken during their summer internship.

After defining a topic, students (sometimes working in pairs) familiarize themselves with the relevant literature, gather and organize pertinent data, develop an appropriate methodology, identify and evaluate a course of action, and develop recommendations. The final product is a clear and persuasive paper (maximum 40 pages), which includes an executive summary describing the issues and recommendations. While students are encouraged to work with real-life "clients" (from a variety of sectors, including government, nonprofit and private), this is not a formal requirement. The project has to be of an operational and practical nature; it should not be a pure research paper.

The ideal second-year paper is one that asks a relevant policy question, and draws on the tools of economics, management, and institutional analysis to develop convincing recommendations. Students are free to work on a wide variety of projects in different policy fields. Some projects incorporate highly technical or quantitative techniques; others use organizational or management analysis. Projects that combine technical analysis with institutional/managerial analysis are particularly desirable. All projects, however, must be focused on an actual policy decision or problem. Background or library research is not an adequate project in itself. The topic must be limited enough in scope to be completed during the time frame, yet broad enough to be intellectually challenging for the student and the client (if there is one).

Some hypothetical examples include:

• What should the priorities of the ministry of education in country A be, and how can these priorities be implemented?
• Should a given project in country B (a dam, a transportation project, a port facility) be undertaken, and if so, how should the project be financed?
• How should the Central Bank of country Y decide between the alternatives of dollarization, currency board, floating exchange rates, and a crawling band for the currency?
• How can an NGO enhance its effectiveness in delivering health services in the rural areas of country Z?
• What strategies should the political leadership in country D employ to develop a participatory approach to poverty alleviation in the context of a World Bank supported program?
• How can fiscal procedures in country D be altered to improve the transparency, accountability, and efficiency of the budget process?

The second year paper is written in conjunction with the required seminar "PED-250Y: Second Year Policy Analysis Seminar." Students are split into three groups, according to the second-year policy track the students have chosen. A different faculty member runs each concurrent session of the seminar. The seminar provides an environment for thinking about general research issues, obtaining feedback on outlines and drafts, and critiquing fellow students' work. In addition, each student is assigned a faculty advisor early in the Fall of their second year. (Students are free to seek their own advisors towards the end of their first year.) The advisor could be the one of the seminar leaders for PED-250Y or another member of the Kennedy School faculty. The advisor provides guidance on topic selection, relevant literature, and the formulation of a research method.