Are Program Participants Good Evaluators?

Jeffrey Smith, Alexander Whalley and Nathaniel Wilcox

No 13584, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: How well do program participants assess program performance ex-post? In this paper we compare participant evaluations based on survey responses to econometric impact estimates obtained using data from the experimental evaluation of the U.S. Job Training Partnership Act. We have two main findings: First, the participant evaluations are unrelated to the econometric impact estimates. Second, the participant evaluations do covary with impact proxies such as service intensity, outcome levels, and before-after outcome differences. Our results suggest that program participants behave as 'lay scientists' who seek to estimate the impact of the program but face cognitive challenges in doing so.

Keywords: program evaluation; participant evaluation; surveys (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 I28 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 64 pages
Date: 2020-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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