ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a few thoughts about how the reader should view the policy role as a policy analyst. It earns their keep by giving advice. Always strive to give useful advice by keeping in mind the range of actions available to the policy client. The chapter emphasize economic efficiency as an important policy goal, which often serves as a valid proxy for social, or public, value. At the most general level, promoting human dignity and freedom are values widely shared in Western societies. Also, ideas that are not immediately politically feasible may become so in the future if they are repeatedly raised and supported with substantively sound analysis; witness the role of economic analysis in setting the stage for the eventual deregulation of the U. S. telephone, trucking, and airline industries. Sometimes doing good simply requires analysts to advise their clients to forgo some current popularity or success to achieve some important value.
