Other fields, such as development economics or medicine often rely on repositories in order to structure available evidence.4 Replicability is an important element of transparency. Replicability ensures that policy decisions are based on robust evidence and on results which survive changes in the set-up of the empirical model.
This requires transparency about the models being used, access to data so that results can be replicated, and good documentation of the set-up of studies. Many of the required protocols have been developed in academia and can be applied to policy work. At the same time, policy evaluation would benefit from a greater appreciation of replication studies in academic work.