Strengthening Benefit-Cost Analysis for Early Childhood Interventions Workshop Summary (2009) / Chapter Skim
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7 Benefit-Cost Analysis in a Policy Context
7 Benefit-Cost Analysis in a Policy Context
Pages 54-62
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From page 54... ...
Still, the message to policy makers is not crisp; differences among programs, settings, populations served, goals, available data, and measurement approaches all affect outcomes, costs, and overall conclusions about the value of early childhood programs. The field faces a double challenge: improving research methods while providing policy makers with accurate information to guide social policy and public investments for children and families.
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From page 55... ...
Penner suggested that benefit-cost analysis is difficult even in the context of flood control projects or highway construction, because cal culating discount rates for future benefits and costs is never simple, nor is valuing a human life. But evaluating interventions for children is still more complex, and Penner suggested an alternative approach.
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From page 56... ...
This is the way it's supposed to work, Baron suggested, but there are few such examples. He cited analysis conducted by the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy suggesting that only 10 to 15 programs across all social policy areas show sizeable, sustained effects in multiple highquality evaluation studies (he emphasized that a great number of programs show evidence of effectiveness, but in very few does the evidence meet the highest criteria for rigor)
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From page 57... ...
Make the Research Work for Policy Makers Steve Aos illustrated how Washington State produces and uses evidence in policy decision making. The state legislature formed the nonpartisan Washington State Institute for Public Policy to provide analysis of policy options for lawmakers.
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From page 58... ...
If, instead, evaluation is viewed as a management tool that can identify the most effective aspects of a program, such as Head Start, that has wide political support because of its mission, it may be more politically useful. Yet the fact that policy makers may not always appreciate the subtlety of research findings is a perpetual problem.
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From page 59... ...
A core set of measures, with common measurement approaches, would improve comparability. For this sort of research to have real value to policy makers, as one person put it, "the witch doctors have to agree." Policy makers do not care about regression discontinuity or other technical matters, they want accurate, comparable information.
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From page 60... ...
However, another participant noted, methodology "may not be the only place where we should be investing time and talent." Although no one at the workshop proposed that a particular methodological approach solves all problems and should be viewed as the state of the art, some benefit-cost analyses do demonstrate benefits that far exceed the costs. "We should also be thinking about where we can't get proof but we can put together good evidence that is not only persuasive to policy makers but will lead us to good policies and good allocation of resources." FINAL OBSERVATIONS Federal and state policy makers are showing increased interest in expanding public investments in early childhood interventions.
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From page 61... ...
BENEFIT-COST ANALYSIS IN A POLICY CONTEXT emerging that allow researchers, program staff, and policy makers to standardize definitions and measures, to assign explicit values to outcomes and inputs, and to develop other productive approaches for improving benefit-cost methodologies of early childhood interventions.
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