Ex Ante Evaluation of Social Programs

Petra Todd and Kenneth Wolpin ()
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Kenneth Wolpin: Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

PIER Working Paper Archive from Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: This paper discusses methods for evaluating the impacts of social programs prior to their implementation. Ex ante evaluation is useful for designing programs that achieve some optimality criteria, such as maximizing impact for a given cost. This paper illustrates through several examples the use of behavioral models in predicting the impacts of hypothetical programs. Among the programs considered are wage subsidy programs, conditional cash transfer programs, and income support programs. In some cases, the behavioral model justifies a completely nonparametric estimation strategy, even when there is no direct variation in the policy instrument. In other cases, stronger modeling and/or functional form assumptions are required to evaluate a program ex ante. We illustrate the application of ex ante evaluation methods using data from the PROGRESA school subsidy experiment in Mexico. We assess the effectiveness of the method by comparing ex ante predictions of program impacts to the impacts measured under the randomized experiment.

Keywords: ex-ante evaluation; matching; evaluation methods; school subsidy programs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 H31 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2006-05-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Journal Article: Ex Ante Evaluation of Social Programs (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pen:papers:06-022

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