Evaluating Public Programs

Evaluating Public Programs
Author: Patrick D. Larkey
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2015-03-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400869978

For effective program evaluation, it is necessary to specify a counterfactual state, i.e., what would have happened without the program. Conventional approaches to program evaluation, preoccupied with technical and value issues, fail to address directly the need for counterfactual arguments. They also fail to recognize the indispensable role of positive theories of technical and behavioral processes in making these arguments. In order to understand the impact of the General Revenue Sharing (GRS) program on the fiscal behavior of municipal governments, Patrick Larkey develops and demonstrates an unconventional approach to program evaluation that overcomes these failures. Drawing on the positive theories of budgetary decisionmaking processes as well as longitudinal revenue and expenditure data from primary sources, the author specifies, estimates, and tests four "bureaucratic process" models for each of five city governments receiving GRS funds. Using these models to generate complex, counterfactual hypotheses, he then compares the counterfactual patterns with observed patterns to understand the fiscal effects of GRS. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

General Revenue Sharing

General Revenue Sharing
Author: United States. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
Publisher:
Total Pages: 80
Release: 1974
Genre: Finance, Public
ISBN:

General Revenue Sharing

General Revenue Sharing
Author: United States. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
Publisher:
Total Pages: 76
Release: 1974
Genre: Intergovernmental fiscal relations
ISBN:

From Revenue Sharing to Deficit Sharing

From Revenue Sharing to Deficit Sharing
Author: Bruce A. Wallin
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 1998-10-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781589013278

Once hailed as a revolutionary change in U.S. federal aid policy that would return power to state and local governments, General Revenue Sharing was politically dead a decade later. Bruce A. Wallin now offers the only complete history of the General Revenue Sharing program — why it passed, why state and local governments used it the way they did, and why it died. He examines its unique role in the history of U.S. federalism and explores its relevance to intergovernmental aid policy at the turn of a new century. This book is crucial to understanding the changed environment of U.S. intergovernmental relations in the 1990’s and makes a strong case for reconsidering a program of federal unrestricted aid.