Setting and Firing Policy Triggers

Governments increasingly use quantitative policy signals as automatic triggers for policy adjustments rather than simply to inform policy debate. This increased use of policy triggers cannot be explained simply by a technocratic desire to reduce workloads and regularize policy adjustments. Political objectives – notably desires to reduce conflict, bind future policymakers, and avoid blame – play an important role both in decisions to use policy triggers and in the selection of specific triggers. Using policy signals as triggers often leads to the politicization of statistics and to harmful rigidification of policy.