FAQ
What political decisions achieve and how ValuePolitics makes their impact visible.
01
ValuePolitics is an independent institute for impact analysis. It examines the consequences that political and public decisions have for people, the economy, society and the environment. To do so, ValuePolitics combines economic valuation with legal and regulatory analysis. The results are meant to serve politics and public administration as well as associations and businesses. Above all, they are meant to give public debate a better foundation.
ValuePolitics was founded in July 2026 by Mathias Weilandt and Dr Richard Scholz. Mathias Weilandt is a lawyer and former State Secretary. As Head of Office at the Saxon State Ministry of Justice and for European Affairs, he saw legislation from the inside, including the regulatory impact assessments produced there. Dr Richard Scholz is an economist at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and develops international methodological standards for impact valuation. He was a member of the Committee of the International Foundation for Valuing Impacts and of the Methodological Board of the Value Balancing Alliance. The legal entity is ValuePolitics GmbH, registered in Leipzig with its business address in Dresden.
Public accountability for impact, in German Wirkungsverantwortung, means judging political decisions by their consequences and not only by their intentions. Anyone entrusted with power for a limited time must be able to explain what a decision is meant to achieve and who bears its benefits and its burdens. This includes a willingness to adjust course when the expected impact fails to materialise. A law is not finished once it is promulgated. That is when it starts to work, or does not.
The mission of ValuePoliticsCitizens shape the consequences of political decisions through elections and political support. They therefore share in the accountability for impact. Anyone who votes for a promise should be able to check whether it holds. ValuePolitics aims to strengthen this judgement with analyses that are understandable and verifiable. The particular responsibility of office holders remains unaffected, because they hold the powers of decision.
“Evidence against populism” describes the aim of ValuePolitics to make political promises of impact verifiable. Anyone who promises a simple solution must be measured against its foreseeable consequences. The standard applies regardless of where a proposal comes from. What counts is the quality of the evidence and the soundness of the argument, not how loudly it is delivered.
02
Political impact analysis examines what a decision or measure actually changes. It asks which consequences are to be expected or have already occurred and whether they can really be attributed to the decision. Who is affected by these consequences matters just as much. The benchmark is a comparison case. What would probably have happened without the measure or with a different decision? Only this comparison separates the impact of a policy from what would have happened anyway.
Spending and delivered services show what was put in, but not what it achieved. A redesigned junction outside a school can be described by its construction costs and construction time. Whether children get to school more safely there is not written on any invoice from the building authority. Impact analysis therefore asks further. Do accidents decline? And which costs to society are avoided as a result, for example through fewer injuries and lower treatment costs?
That something changes after a decision does not prove that the decision was the cause. The cockerel crows every morning before sunrise, yet the sun does not wait for it. Impact analysis therefore examines the mechanism of impact and looks specifically for other explanations. This requires suitable comparison data. How robust a statement about causes can be depends on the study design and on the available data. ValuePolitics explicitly separates observed changes from established causal findings. Model calculations are labelled as such.
Yes. Refraining from a measure has consequences too. Problems persist and the costs often grow with them. A dangerous junction does not become safer just because the budget has been cut. ValuePolitics therefore examines how the situation would develop without the decision under review. The comparison case takes foreseeable changes into account, such as demographic trends or measures already adopted.
Impact analysis is as useful before a decision as after it. Beforehand it compares policy options, afterwards it assesses what was actually achieved. During implementation it can also show where course corrections are needed. It is particularly worthwhile when a lot of public money is at stake or when a central promise of impact has so far barely been substantiated. The research question and the depth of analysis depend on what the decision requires and on the evidence available.
An evaluation usually assesses after the fact whether a programme has achieved its objectives. Impact analysis as practised by ValuePolitics starts earlier and goes further. It can compare options before a decision is taken. Where the method allows, it also values impacts in monetary terms and sets them against the costs. The two approaches complement each other. A good evaluation provides data that a later impact analysis badly needs.
No. Impact analysis can estimate consequences and compare alternatives. Which objectives take priority and which distribution of benefits and burdens is fair remains a democratic decision. The choice of criteria and benchmarks also involves value judgements. ValuePolitics discloses them so that politics and the public can put the results into context. The analysis does not replace judgement. It gives judgement a foundation.
03
Valuation in monetary terms brings different consequences into a common unit and sets them against the costs of a measure. This makes orders of magnitude comparable that would otherwise sit side by side like apples and oranges. ValuePolitics uses established methods of impact valuation for this, as far as the data and the method allow. The results depend on the valuation bases chosen. These bases are therefore disclosed in every analysis.
No. For some impacts there is no robust basis for valuation in monetary terms. ValuePolitics reports them qualitatively or with suitable indicators. They remain part of the assessment. Fundamental rights and the liberal legal order also set limits of their own. A favourable ratio of benefits to costs on paper makes a measure neither lawful nor politically right.
The social return on investment, SROI for short, sets the societal impacts of a measure, valued in monetary terms, against the resources used. The figure is a model result. It depends on the comparison case, on the period considered, on the selection of impacts and on the valuation assumptions. ValuePolitics reports an SROI only where it is methodologically sound. Its prerequisites and limits are always explained. A single figure easily invites reverence. Above all, it deserves questions.
ValuePolitics checks every source for its origin and its suitability for the specific question. Where data are missing, assumptions and approximations are labelled as such. Scenarios and sensitivity analyses show how results shift when the underlying conditions change. Observed data and model calculations are presented separately. Where the evidence does not allow a robust statement, ValuePolitics names this limit instead of covering it up with decimal places.
04
Regulatory impact assessment is part of preparing legislation. At federal level in Germany, section 44 of the Joint Rules of Procedure of the Federal Ministries requires a bill to set out its intended effects and its unintended side effects. In particular, the effects on public budgets and the compliance costs must also be stated. Whether and when the effects will later be reviewed must be specified as well. ValuePolitics builds on this and sets its own focus. Where the method allows, the institute also values the societal benefit in monetary terms. At the same time it asks how benefits and burdens are distributed. It discloses its assumptions publicly. The approach is not limited to legislation. It also works for funding programmes and procurement decisions, from preparation through to later review.
At federal level, Germany's National Regulatory Control Council (Nationaler Normenkontrollrat) mainly checks whether the compliance costs of new rules are presented in a comprehensible and methodologically sound way (section 1(3) NKRG). Beyond that it may examine, for example, the presentation of alternatives or the plans for evaluation (section 4(2) NKRG). The objectives of a rule are expressly not part of its review (section 1(4) NKRG). The regulatory control councils of the German states have mandates of their own that differ from one another. ValuePolitics sees itself as a complement to these bodies. Where they review the cost side, ValuePolitics asks first and foremost about the impact.
For funding, the decisive question is what the resources deployed achieve in addition. What would have happened without the funding anyway? For procurement decisions, the likely impacts of different procurement options can be compared. ValuePolitics can analyse options and assessment criteria in advance and examine the results later. How the findings may be taken into account in the procedure is determined by the applicable legal framework.
Political decisions only take effect through their implementation and through the reactions of those affected. Staff, responsibilities, procedures and funding help decide whether a measure achieves its objective. Additional teaching posts do not improve any lessons as long as they remain vacant. ValuePolitics takes these conditions into account where they matter for the impact under review. This shows which preconditions a promise of impact rests on and where it falters in practice.
05
The ImpactScan is the central analysis format of ValuePolitics. This concise expert report examines a specific decision or measure. It brings together the available evidence and assesses consequences and costs along with their uncertainty. An ImpactScan can prepare a decision or examine its impact after the fact. Scope and explanatory power depend on the research question and the available data.
Impact analysis methodologyThe first published ImpactScan covers safe routes to school in Saxony. It links georeferenced accident data from 2021 to 2025 with the surroundings of Saxon schools and prioritises 400 accident hotspots by their costs to society. In the baseline scenario with investment at the 50 hotspots with the highest damage, every euro invested is associated with a modelled EUR 4.65 in avoided societal accident costs. The analysis assesses a portfolio of sites. It does not replace planning on site and does not identify site-specific interventions or impact forecasts. The report and the calculation model are freely available on the ImpactScan page. An interactive dashboard lets readers work through the scenarios themselves.
View the ImpactScan Safe routes to school in SaxonyValuePolitics produces ImpactScans, preliminary analyses and evidence syntheses, in-depth impact analyses as well as legislative and regulatory impact assessments. Funding programmes and public procurement decisions can also be the subject of an analysis. Which format fits depends on what the decision requires and on the evidence available. ValuePolitics works on behalf of institutions, businesses, associations and organisations and on its own initiative.
The roles are clearly divided. The client defines the research question and decides on publication. ValuePolitics is responsible for the method and the result. The analysis has an open outcome and may produce findings that contradict the client's expectations. Whoever commissions pays for the study, not for the result. These standards also apply to confidential studies.
ValuePolitics is funded mainly through commissioned work. Its own studies may additionally be supported by foundations or public funding programmes. ValuePolitics names whoever funds a study when it is published. The only shareholders are Mathias Weilandt and Dr Richard Scholz. Whoever pays determines the question, not the answer.
No. ValuePolitics produces both public and confidential analyses. Whether and how a commissioned analysis is published is agreed between ValuePolitics and the client. The same professional standards apply to both. Public results appear on valuepolitics.com with a report, sources, methodological documentation and, on request, an interactive presentation.
A result can only be checked if its foundations are open. ValuePolitics therefore discloses sources, data status, assumptions and calculations, as far as this is legally and practically possible. For the published safe routes to school scan, the complete calculation model is available as an Excel workbook. Interactive publications also allow readers to change key assumptions themselves and trace their effect on the result. Anyone who disagrees can do the maths.
ValuePolitics uses artificial intelligence where it makes the work more thorough and faster. This applies above all to researching publicly available sources and to programming the analyses. Confidential client data are not transmitted to external AI systems in the process. The analysis programs are developed using a description of the data structure and purpose-built sample data. The actual analysis of the original data takes place separately in a local computing environment. Professional responsibility for the method and the result lies with ValuePolitics. A statement does not become true because a machine phrased it.
It starts with a specific question. Which decision is pending? And which consequences should be examined? In a first conversation, ValuePolitics and the client clarify what the decision requires, which data exist, the timetable and how the results will be handled. On this basis a suitable format and the effort involved can be determined. A conversation can be arranged through the contact form or the booking calendar on valuepolitics.com.
Discuss a questionThe duration depends above all on the research question and the available data. An ImpactScan is deliberately designed as a concise format so that results are available while the debate is still going on and not once it has already moved on. ValuePolitics gives a binding timetable after the first conversation.
As of November 2026
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