Using Performance Standards to Evaluate Social Programs with Incomplete Outcome Data: General Issues and Application to a Higher Education Block Grant Program
The basic idea of program evaluation is both simple and appealing. Program outcomes are measured and compared to some minimum performance standard or threshold. In practice, however, evaluation is quite difficult. Two fundamental problems of outcome measurement must be addressed. The first, which we call the problem of auxiliary outcomes, is that we do not observe outcome of interest. The second, which we call the problem of counterfactual outcomes, is that we do not observe the threshold standard. This paper examines how performance standards should be set and applied in the face of these problems in measuring outcomes. In particular, we consider the problem of evaluating the new World Bank-sponsored Quality of Under-graduate Education (QUE) program. This competitive block grant program is to be judged by the program's effects on student outcomes, not by the particular ways in which grantee depart-ments use their funds. Our central message is that the proper way to implement standards varies with the prior information that the evaluator can credibly bring to bear to compensate for incomplete outcome data. An evaluator, confronted with the auxiliary and counter-factual outcomes problems, should combine the available data with credible assumptions on treatment and outcomes. Given this information, the performance of a program may be deemed acceptable, unacceptable, or indeterminate.
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for Policy Resarch at Northwestern University in its series IPR working papers with number
00-1.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: