Journal on Policy and Complex Systems
Keywords : adaptability , commitment , thresholds , behavioral flexibility , environmental turbulence , agent-based model , group fitness
Stay or Switch ?
Most of us , in most aspects of life , at some point face the question of whether we should make the most of our current situation or try something else . Whether it is a question of love , career , or the place we call home , we are always making a choice over whether to stay with the current situation or switch to ( potentially ) greener pastures .
The exceptions are in the extremes . If you are with the love of your life or your job is everything you have ever wanted , you should probably stay . If you ’ re in a relationship with someone you hate , or your job is the worst thing that ’ s happened to you , you should probably go . 1 However , the vast majority of us , the majority of the time , are somewhere in the middle on any number of dimensions . Things are good , but they could be better . To make them better , should I do more of whatever I am doing , or change goals altogether ? If things are not great , should I switch to something else ? Or do I do as well as I can in the current circumstances ?
In the policy world , this question applies most obviously to situations where a policy is not yielding the desired outcome : should we stay and increase our efforts with the current policy , or are our goals misguided , and we should switch to another policy altogether ? For example , a major debate in foreign aid is when aid does not achieve the outcomes we desire , is it because we are not doing enough , or because we are channeling our resources in the wrong direction ?
One way to think of this is as nested questions . Suppose I want to combat malaria . Breman et al . ( 2006 ) divide extrinsic malaria factors into three categories : control and prevention ; social , behavioral , economic , and political ; and environmental ( Breman et al . 2006 ). A first question I might ask is how to allocate resources over solutions within one of these categories .
For example , within control and prevention I might decide whether to focus on drugs or insecticide-treated nets ( ITNs ). If after a period I conclude drugs are not yielding desired outcomes , I face a choice between providing even more drugs or switching to nets . Alternatively , I could select some threshold : if malaria diagnoses reach a given rate , I switch to the other strategy . As the environment becomes more variable , perhaps due to unrelated human or mosquito population trends , should I even become open to changing strategies more , either by adjusting the threshold above which I switch , or increasing the probability with which I switch , or both ?
The same dilemma applies one level up . If I am unhappy with outcomes after another period of switching between nets and drugs , I could then expand my
1 You are welcome for this free , outstanding life advice .
110