A small think tank though we may be, we are inclined to believe that the research reports we produce are capable of influencing policy change that will help make New Zealand the best little country it can possibly be.

And, like many think tanks and research centres the world over, we understand that ensuring our policy recommendations are consumed by as wide an audience as possible is the best way to promote that change.

Research reports are a fundamental component of think tank work. They are the result of months of sweat, blood and occasionally tears, of rigorous analysis, brain pretzels and laborious edits. These reports play a central role in generating and sharing the very knowledge that is essential for inducing public debate and encouraging better policy.

But, just for a second, consider the sheer number of reports launched every year by every research organisation and released into the mysterious world of infinitude that is the internet.

Now consider how many of these reports are actually looked at.

A Working Paper released by the World Bank late last year explored precisely this.

The Documents & Reports database on the World Bank website houses more than 130,000 publically available World Bank documents. There have been, on average, 322 policy reports released per year over the past five years. Of these, 49 percent have the stated objective of “informing public debate”.

But this is where the analytics get really interesting. Albeit, a little depressing.

While 13 percent of World Bank policy reports are downloaded at least 250 times, over 31 percent of policy reports are never downloaded. Ever.

Essentially, there could be thousands of reports released each year by various organisations, on policy issues big and small, that never see the light of day. Or at least, a desktop monitor.

As Washington Posts’ Christopher Ingraham emphasises, that is thousands of reports that go unnoticed per year, any number of which potentially contain the solution to the world’s most pressing policy problems.

It is like the intellectual equivalent of buried treasure!

On a more optimistic note, while The New Zealand Initiative may produce a (slightly) smaller number of reports, the Issuu online version of The Case for Growth has been downloaded more than a hundred times in the month it has been available, without counting PDF and other versions hosted elsewhere.

We do put a lot of weight on ensuring our reports are as accessible and as digestible as possible. Because being read is the first step to inducing policy change.

And you never know, our recommendations could hold the key to promoting world peace.

Or at any rate, solving New Zealand’s housing crisis.