Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Policy evaluation'

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies that aim at providing new evidence in the field of public policy evaluation. In particular, the first two chapters focus on the effects of the European cohesion policy, while the third chapter assesses the effectiveness of Italian labour market incentives in reducing long-term unemployment. The first study analyses the effect of EU funds on life satisfaction across European regions , under the assumption that projects financed by structural funds in the fields of employment, education, health and environment may affect the overall quality of life in recipient regions. Using regional data from the European Social Survey in 2002-2006, it resorts to a regression discontinuity design, where the discontinuity is provided by the institutional framework of the policy. The second study aims at estimating the impact of large transfers from a centralized authority to a local administration on the incidence of white collar crimes. It merges a unique dataset on crimes committed in Italian municipalities between 2007 and 2011 with information on the disbursement of EU structural funds in 2007-2013 programming period, employing an instrumental variable estimation strategy that exploits the variation in the electoral cycle at local level. The third study analyses the impact of an Italian labour market policy that allowed firms to cut their labour costs on open-ended job contracts when hiring long-term unemployed workers. It takes advantage of a unique dataset that draws information from the unemployment lists in Veneto region and it resorts to a regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effect of the policy on the job finding rate of long-term unemployed workers.

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies that aim at providing new evidence in the field of public policy evaluation. In particular, the first two chapters focus on the effects of the European cohesion policy, while the third chapter assesses the effectiveness of Italian labour market incentives in reducing long-term unemployment. The first study analyses the effect of EU funds on life satisfaction across European regions , under the assumption that projects financed by structural funds in the fields of employment, education, health and environment may affect the overall quality of life in recipient regions. Using regional data from the European Social Survey in 2002-2006, it resorts to a regression discontinuity design, where the discontinuity is provided by the institutional framework of the policy. The second study aims at estimating the impact of large transfers from a centralized authority to a local administration on the incidence of white collar crimes. It merges a unique dataset on crimes committed in Italian municipalities between 2007 and 2011 with information on the disbursement of EU structural funds in 2007-2013 programming period, employing an instrumental variable estimation strategy that exploits the variation in the electoral cycle at local level. The third study analyses the impact of an Italian labour market policy that allowed firms to cut their labour costs on open-ended job contracts when hiring long-term unemployed workers. It takes advantage of a unique dataset that draws information from the unemployment lists in Veneto region and it resorts to a regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effect of the policy on the job finding rate of long-term unemployed workers.

This document is a collection of three articles developed during the course of my PhD, which I submit as requirement for the final exam. The three papers focus to some extent on policy evaluation, applying two main microeconometric techniques: regression discontinuity design and difference-in-differences. Each paper is briefly described as follows. Daylight Saving Lives - In this paper I investigate the effect of Daylight Saving Time (DST) on homicides. Educated Candidates and Efficient Bureaucrats - I test whether more educated candidates make into less corrupt public managers Accountability Shock and Market for Oversight - In this paper I tests whether a top-down shock in oversight and political accountability can strengthen the market for transparency in public management.

This thesis comprises two rather different chapters. The first chapter explores the impact of increasing the exit costs of cohabitation on the stability of relationships. The second chapter explores the impact that an established environmental beach award has on the tourism sector and the balance sheet of a municipality. Notwithstanding these thematic differences, the two chapters are connected by the way in which the research therein was conducted. This particular approach to research is known as the credibility revolution". It was championed by Angrist and Pischke in Angrist and Pischke (2008) and Angrist and Pischke (2010). The approach is concerned with causality above all other issues and aims at minimising the assumptions made when estimating an object of interest; be it theoretical or technical. In order to construct well-founded economic models of behaviour based on the credibility revolution", this sort of humble policy evaluation work needs to be abundant. Without gathering sufficient evidence about the causal mechanisms that inform the behaviour of individuals; there can be no strong foundations upon which to build sound economic models. This is only likely to lead to misleading analyses and policy failures.

This thesis presents a number of examples where macroeconometric models are employed as useful tools for evaluation of contemporary policy problems. A range of approaches is proposed to shed light on how macromodels can actually contribute to the policy debate. In particular, the thesis emphasises how different models maybe augmented or modified and stresses the need for care in the experimental design of policy simulations. Small stylised models of the UK economy are estimated in the first part of this thesis. They are used to assess the performance of simple monetary policy rules under the current inflation targeting monetary regime. In a monetary policy regime of inflation targeting, the appropriate target band-width can be assessed by calculating the variance of inflation in a macroeconomic model under alternative policy rules. A recent Bank of England study concludes from stochastic simulation of a small semi-structural model that a 'fairly substantial lump of inflation uncertainty' exists in the United Kingdom. In chapter 2 an extended and improved version of that model is developed while their estimates of inflation variability are revised downwards by deploying analytic techniques. In chapter 3 a new small 'semi structural' dynamic model of the UK economy is estimated, with particular attention to the modelling of wages and prices. It is used to assess the performance of simple monetary policy rules, including 'inflation forecast targeting' and 'Taylor' rules, while taking into account different degrees of forward-lookingness in both inflation targeting horizon and wage bargaining. Computation of asymptotic inflation-output standard-error trade-offs is provided under various specifications and parametrisations of the model. Large-scale country models have the convenience to make explicit a complete range of relationships among macroeconomic variables most of which, for obvious reasons, are neglected in smaller dynamic models. As a consequence, such quantitative framework offers an unique opportunity to evaluate not only the aggregate impact of exogenous shocks on the variables of interest, but also to identify the underlying economic mechanisms enabling the transmission of such shocks. In the second part of the thesis, I undertake simulations of the National Institute's Domestic Econometric Model (NIDEM) to analyse the characteristics of the UK monetary transmission mechanism. Chapter 4 emphasises that the impact of interest rate movements on real variables is strictly determined by both the monetary regime at work and the underlying assumptions regarding consumption behaviour. Certainly, the steady integration of the members of the EMU and increasing awareness of the need for closer co-operation in monetary and fiscal policy have stimulated greater interest in modelling interdependencies between European countries and the impact and feedbacks from the rest of the world economy. Many of the key issues have now an international aspect, so it becomes more and more difficult to rely on single-country models to provide necessary analysis. International transmission mechanisms can therefore be better tackled with a multi-country model. The third and last part of this thesis focuses on cross-country asymmetric transmissions in response to a common monetary shock within EMU. In particular, in chapter 5 an empirical analysis of the links between monetary and fiscal policy within EMU is presented. This is done through simulation of a neo-classical highly non-Ricardian multi-country model: the IMF's MULTIMOD Mark III (MM3). Chapter 6 provides further evidence about the effects of embracing a Monetary Union when underlying macroeconomist structures still differ across countries. By use of the same model-based quantitative framework, this chapter examines the role of nominal and real rigidities in European labour markets for the assessment of asymmetries in monetary transmission under various monetary regimes.

2014 - 2015
Over the last two decades there has been a proliferation of literature on program evaluation. Many researches in economics look at the causal effect of exposure of units to programs on some outcomes through econometric and statistical analysis. The units are typically economic agents such as individuals, households, markets, firms, counties, states or countries. The programs can be job search assistance programs, educational programs, vouchers, laws or regulations, drug therapies, environmental exposure or technology shocks. Rubin potential outcomes framework seems to be the dominant framework in which the aim is to compare the two potential outcomes for the same unit when he or she is exposed and not exposed to the program (or treatment)1. However, each unit can be only exposed to one levels of program: an individual may enrol or not in a training program or he (or she) may be subjected or not to policy. We can refer to this as the fundamental problem of causal inference (Holland, 1986; Imbens andWooldridge, 2008). The impossibility to compare the same individual at different treatment status induces to resolve the issue thinking in term of counterfactual. We need to compare distinct units at different levels of treatment. This means to compare different physical units or the same physical unit observed at different times. But each individual or unit who chooses to enrol in a program is (by definition) different from that who chooses not to enrol. These differences may invalidate causal comparison of outcomes by treatment status. Indeed, the fear in this econometrics literature is traditionally related to endogeneity, or self-selection, issues2. The simplest case for analysis is when assignment to treatment is randomized, and thus independent from the covariates as well as the potential outcomes. It is straightforward to obtain attractive estimators for the average effect of treatment in randomized experiments (e.g. the difference in means by treatment status). Although there have been some example 1Starting from the seventies, Rubin (1974, 1977, 1978) proposed to interpret the causal effect as comparison of so-called potential outcomes, namely pairs of outcomes define for the same unit given different levels of exposure to the treatment. This represent the dominant approach to the analysis of causal relationship in observational studies known with the label of Rubin Causal Model. 2Many of the initial theoretical studies focused on the use of traditional methods for dealing with endogeneity, such as fixed effect methods from panel data analyses and instrumental variables methods. Subsequently, the econometrics literatures has developed new approaches, requiring fewer functional form and homogeneity assumptions (Imbens and Wooldridge, 2008). 3/ 12 of experimental evaluations, they remain relatively rare in economics. More common is the case where economists analyse data from observational studies. Observational data generally create challenges in estimating causal effects referred to unconfoundedness, exogeneity, conditional independence, or selection on observable characteristics3. Estimation and inference of causal effect under unconfoundedness assumption requires that conditional on observed covariates there are no unobserved factors that are associated both with the assignment and with the potential outcomes4. Without unconfoundedness assumption there is no general approach to estimating treatment effects and various methods have been proposed (for a review, see Imbens and Wooldridge 2008). Where additional data are present in the form of samples of treated and control units before and after the treatment comparisons can be made through a difference-in-difference approach. The simplest setting is one where outcomes are observed for units observed in one of two groups (i.e. treated and control) and in one of two time periods (i.e. pre-treatment and post-treatment). Only units in one of the two groups, in the second time period, are exposed to a treatment. There are no units exposed to the treatment in the first period, and units from control group are never observed to be exposed to the treatment. To estimate the causal effect, the average change over time in the outcomes of control group is subtracted from the change over time in the outcomes of treated group. This double differencing removes biases in second period comparisons between the treatment and control group, that could be the result from permanent differences between those groups, as well as biases from comparisons over time in the treatment group, that could be the result of time trends unrelated to the treatment. Where the assignment of treatment is a deterministic function of covariates, comparisons can be made exploring continuity of average outcomes as a function of covariates. This setting, known as the regression discontinuity design, has a long tradition in statistics though only recently it has attracted much attention in the economics literature5. The basic idea is that assignment to the treatment is determined, either completely or partly, by the value of a predictor (i.e. an individual’s observable characteristic) being on either side of a common threshold. This generates a discontinuity in the conditional probability of receiving the treatment as a function of this particular predictor. Any other characteristic, between elected and unelected individual, is assumed to be smooth. As a result, any discontinuity of the conditional distribution of the outcome, as a function of this covariate at the threshold, is interpreted as evidence of a causal effect of the treatment6. 3For a review on this literature, see Imbens and Wooldridge (2008). 4Unconfoundedness implies that we have a sufficiently rich set of predictors for the treatment indicator, such that adjusting for differences in these covariates leads to valid estimates of causal effect. 5For recent review in the economics literature, see Van der Klaauw (2008), Imbens andWooldridge (2008) and Lee and Lemieux (2010). 6It may be useful to distinguish between two general setting, the sharp and the fuzzy regression discontinuity design. In the sharp regression discontinuity design, the assignment to treatment is a deterministic function of one of the observable covariates. In the fuzzy regression discontinuity design the probability of receiving the treatment 4/ 12 This thesis presents three essays of policy evaluation using the above quasi-experimental approaches. The research covers two different type of policies. On the one hand, we assess the effects on crime induced by a marijuana decriminalization policy exploiting the reforms still ongoing in the United States, on the other hand, we evaluate the impacts of the labour market reforms on labour market outcomes by using the recent changes in Italy occurred after the law 92/2012 (the so-called Fornero reform) like identification tool. Depending on the specific subject, the analysis is carried out from a specific empirical point of view. The first essay sheds light on the relationship between Medical Marijuana Laws and crimes in United States using counties level data. The set of judicial rules on the therapeutic consumption, production and distribution of cannabis at State level—started since 1996 in the United States—is known as Medical Marijuana Law (MML). It recognises the medical value of marijuana and provides a legal defence for patients who used and possessed marijuana under recommendation of a physician. The purpose of policy was the pain reduction for which the States allow doctors to prescribe marijuana as a pain killer also for general complaints related to pain, such as migraines, back pain and other pathologies. But, since the list of illness is quite broad, de facto, MML allows wide possibility for recreational use of marijuana masked like therapeutic consumptions (Chu, 2012). Hence, the assessment of policy on crime seems suitable. The research closely examining the importance of policy dimensions and the timing of the core elements of MMLs. In the U.S. States there have been three main actions that have involved the cannabis use for medical purpose: the mere decriminalization of marijuana, the permission of home cultivation for patients and caregivers, the licence for selling marijuana in authorized dispensaries. We interpret dimensions as design choices of policy maker on legal marijuana market by distinguishing between demand side approach, aimed to merely decriminalize cannabis, and supply side approach, directed to provide legal sources of supply for marijuana. This permits to explain the possible transmission channel trough which Medical Marijuana State Laws can affect crime. We test three possible links between drugs liberalization reforms and crime (i.e. pharmacological, economic, and systemic channels) finding evidence for only one of them (i.e. systemic channel). The analysis uses the Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data (UCR, 2013) which reports the number of arrests by type of offence from 1994 to 2014 at the U.S. county level. Since we have data of treated and control counties before and after the implementation of MML, we employ difference-in-difference approach by considering several types of crime such as violent and property crimes, and also felonies for narcotic possession (i.e. cocaine, heroine need not change from zero to one at the threshold. The design only requires a sufficiently large discontinuity in the probability of assignment to the treatment at the threshold. 5/ 12 etc.). We exploit the assessment of Medical Marijuana Law to highlight an important question in program evaluation concerning the heterogeneity of treatment effect. Even if the average treatment effect is zero, it may be important to establish whether a targeted implementation of intervention or different levels of treatment across the population could affect average outcome. We find that a simple dichotomous indicator of Medical Marijuana Law (i.e. the average treatment effect on all the U.S. States that passed the policy) may mask crucial dynamics underlying the relationship between policy and crime. Assuming a homogeneous impact of policy on crime, regardless the action implemented, the dichotomous indicator of MML captures only the net effect of the regulatory tools put in place by the legislator. On the contrary, the policy decomposition in key dimensions allows to discover different results which suggests a heterogeneous effects on crime according to the specific regulatory actions put in place by the legislator. In detail, for burglaries, larcenies, and cocaine drug possession, the mere application of demand side approach increases the crime in counties that passed the policy compared to counties without MML. While, the joint application of demand and supply approach— which establish legal sources for supply marijuana — may be able to realize a crowding-out effect on these offences. The findings support the idea that the licit competition on the marijuana market, triggered by the policy, could push out the illegal trade decreasing the crime. Finally, we find a net reduction in murders and a net increase in synthetic drug possession for the U.S. counties subject to the Medical Marijuana Law relatively to counties never passed the policy. The second and the third essays assess the impact of law 92/2012, implemented in Italy in 2012 (the so-called Fornero reform), on different labour market outcomes. The law 92/2012 introduced numerous changes regarding employment relationships amending past discipline. First. It substantially changed the discipline concerning the dismissals in firms above 15 employees. The reform established that in case of unfair dismissal, the dismissed worker has no longer the right to be reinstated as in the pre-reform period and receives a monetary compensation that ranges between 12 and 24 months pay. Thus the reform significantly reduces the firing cost borne by large firms. Second. Starting from January 2013, the Fornero reform also changed the discipline on apprenticeships concerning to the minimum duration of contract (no less than six months), the maximum number of apprentices that an employer can hire per each skilled worker (passed from 1:1 to 3:2), and the minimum number of apprentices that an employer must stabilize into permanent contracts for hiring a new apprentice (at least the 30% of apprentices hired in the last 12 months). Third. The Fornero reform implemented a new incentive program in favour of employers that recruit (on fixed-term or open-ended contracts) or stabilize into permanent agreements a worker aged 50 or more years. 6/ 12 The second essay (carried out with Giovanni Pica) estimates the effect of employment protection legislation on the flow of monthly hirings on open ended contracts using the aforesaid labour market reform passed in Italy in 2012. Much empirical research has focused on the effects of dismissal costs on labour market outcomes. The evidence suggests that EPL decreases employment inflows and outflows with little effect on employment and unemployment stocks. The reason is that firing costs act, in expected discounted value, as hiring cost reducing the willingness of the firms to both fire and hire workers (Bentolila and Bertola, 1990; Blanchard and Portugal, 2001). The most recent studies identify the causal impact of employment protection on labour market outcome exploiting within-county variation in EPL either across firms (e.g. of different size) or workers (e.g. of different age and/or tenure). The essay presented is in the line with within-county approach which allows to better control for time-varying unobserved characteristics that may affect labour market outcomes (act as confounding factors) compared to cross-country analyses. The presence of both treated and control firms observed before and after the policy — where the assignment of treatment depends in deterministic way from the number of workers employed — allows to implement a difference-in-difference approach jointly to a regression discontinuity design. We thus exploit the differential law change between firms with more and less than 15 workers comparing hirings in firms just above and below the 15 employee threshold before and after the reform (July 2012). The analysis is based on monthly data drawn from Italian Social Security (INPS) record for the period 2012 and 2014. The data provide information on the number of newly hired workers by firms size, province, sector, contract type, age and gender at a monthly frequency. The findings suggest that the reform raises monthly hirings on open-ended contracts by about 5.1 percentage points. The quantification of results reveals that the reduction of dismissal costs after the reform have induced about 4000 hirings per month in firms with more than 15 workers relative to firms with less than 15 workers. The effect of the reduction in EPL is not homogeneous across workers’ types. The increase seems to be more pronounced for full-time, young, and blue-collar workers. Conversely, we find no significant effect on the number of conversions of temporary contracts into permanent ones. The third essay evaluates the impact of labour policies aimed to improve the job possibilities for workers categorized as vulnerable (particularly in labour markets with stringent employment protection)7. Given the increasingly complicated transition from school to works, the youth appear a group more vulnerable compared to the past. Here the apprenticeship contract performs a crucial role by improving the job possibility and the stability of young workers (Berton et al., 2007; Casale et al., 2014). At the same time, the low employment rates for older workers pushed most OECD countries 7Evidences suggest that labour market prospects for youth and other marginal groups seem to worsen as a consequence of stringent EPL (Allard and Lindert, 2007; Bertola et al., 2007; Skedinger, 2010). 7/ 12 to experiment specific employment protections with the purpose to protect them from unemployment or/and to improve their job finding rates (Chéron et al., 2011). The Fornero reform intervenes by changing the discipline of apprenticeship in Italy and implementing a new incentive program for workers aged 50 or more years. The reform asymmetrically acted on the apprenticeships by changing the discipline in firms with more than 10 employees leaving the rules for firms below 10 unchanged. Likewise, the new incentive program for workers aged 50 or more years, passed with the Fornero reform, cut the hiring costs in firms that recruit workers over-50, leaving unaffected the costs for hiring workers under-50. These discontinuities in the regulation as well as the simultaneous presence of treated and control groups observed before and after the policy allow to implement a difference-in-deference method jointly to a regression discontinuity design. This quasi-experimental method permits to evaluate the causal effect of reform on the monthly hirings of apprentices and workers over-50. We thus exploit the differential law change in apprenticeships between firms with more and less than 10 employees, comparing the hirings and the conversions into open-ended contracts of apprentices in firms just below and above the 10 employees threshold before and after the reform (January 2013). Similarly, we compare the recruitments and the conversions into permanent contracts of workers with more and less 50 years before and after the reform. Also this analysis uses monthly data draw from Italian Social Security (INPS) record for the period 2012 and 2014. The findings suggest that the change in apprenticeships increase the stabilization of apprentices into open-ended contracts by about 3.9 percentage points in firms with more than 10 employees relative to firms with less than 10. We also find a positive association between law 92/2012 and the new recruitments of apprentices by about 7.1 percentage points in firms with more than 10 employees relative to firms with less than 10 employees. The employer incentives for hiring and stabilizing the workers aged 50 or more years positively affect the recruitments into open-ended contracts of workers over-50 relative to workers under-50 by about 1.6 percentage point. We also find a positive association between the incentive program and the hirings into fixed-term contracts of workers over-50 relative to workers under-50. Conversely, we don’t find effects for the conversions into open-ended contracts of workers aged 50 or more years. [edited by author]
Proposito della tesi di dottorato, dal titolo “Three Essays on Policy Evaluation”, è quello di sottolineare come l’impatto di una politica (economica e non) possa essere valutato secondo un approccio rigoroso, quasi-sperimentale, quando architettata adeguatamente a tale scopo. A tal proposito, sono mostrati tre esempi di valutazione delle politiche, nel corso dei quali si espongono ed affrontano le principali problematiche legate a questo tipo di esercizio. L'interesse dell'approccio adoperato nella presente tesi è dato dall'ampia utilizzazione del metodo difference-in-difference che consente di stimare, in vari contesti, gli impatti che politiche di differente natura possono avere sulle variabili socio-economiche. Ciascuno degli esercizi di valutazione costituisce un capitolo della tesi. Ogni uno di essi ha comportato una rassegna della letteratura in materia (allo scopo di inquadrare il tema trattato), la ricerca dei dati e l’elaborazione di uno specifico modello econometrico finalizzato all’identificazione del nesso causale. Il primo capitolo valuta l’impatto che le politiche di decriminalizzazione della cannabis per scopi terapeutici (Medical Marijuana Laws), adottate nei singoli Stati degli Stati Uniti, hanno avuto sulla criminalità a livello di contea. L’impatto della riforma è valutato rispetto a differenti tipologie di crimini, tratti dal UCR del FBI, classificabili in reati legati alla persona (i.e. omicidi), alla proprietà (i.e. furti) e all’uso di altre sostanza stupefacenti (i.e. cocaina). Dal lavoro emerge come ciascuno Stato americano si differenzi dagli altri sia per le tempistiche che per le modalità attuative della decriminalizzazione. L’originalità del lavoro sta nello sfruttare questa eterogeneità. Esso, infatti, propone una scomposizione della politica di decriminalizzazione della cannabis in interventi chiave, legati alle specifiche azioni adottate in tema di approvvigionamento e di distribuzione della marijuana. Tale scomposizione permette di identificare come l’impatto sui crimini commessi vari a seconda del timing e delle modalità di approvazione della decriminalizzazione. La scomposizione consente, inoltre, di ipotizzare un possibile canale di trasmissione attraverso il quale la Medical Marijuana Law impatterebbe sui crimini. I risultati empirici suggeriscono che la semplice decriminalizzazione della marijuana avrebbe un impatto positivo sulla criminalità se non accompagnata da (contestuali) interventi finalizzati ad istituire fonti legali di approvvigionamento della sostanza. Il secondo capitolo studia il ruolo che i meccanismi di protezione dell’occupazione (employment protection legislation) esercitano sui flussi in entrata del mercato del lavoro. A tale scopo, il lavoro stima l’impatto sulle assunzioni (e conversioni) in contratti a tempo indeterminato indotto dalla riforma del mercato del lavoro in Italia – legge n. 92 del 2012 (cd. riforma Fornero) – che ha ridotto i costi di licenziamento in carico alle imprese con più di 15 dipendenti, lasciando inalterata la situazione per le imprese con meno di 15 dipendenti. Il lavoro, oltre ad inquadrare la tematica con una rassegna della letteratura, sfrutta l’asimmetrico impatto della riforma (per le imprese appena sopra e appena sotto i 15 dipendenti) per stimare un modello difference-in-difference in un contesto di regression discontinuity design, utilizzando dati mensili INPS. I risultati empirici suggeriscono che la riduzione delle protezioni del lavoro incrementi le assunzioni in contratti a tempo indeterminato. Tale effetto risulta non omogeneo tra i diversi gruppi di lavoratori, mostrandosi più pronunciato per gli assunti full-time, più giovani ed operai. Al contrario, non emerge un chiaro effetto rispetto alle conversioni in contratti a tempo indeterminato. Infine, il terzo capitolo esamina le politiche del lavoro aventi l’obiettivo di aumentare le possibilità occupazionali di categorie ritenute più vulnerabili, quali i giovani lavoratori e gli over-50. A questo scopo, si utilizza la riforma dell’apprendistato e l’introduzione di un nuovo schema di incentivi per i lavoratori over-50, in forza in Italia a partire da gennaio 2013 (legge 92/2012), per stimare l’impatto che tali tipologia di interventi hanno sulle nuove assunzioni (sia a tempo determinato che indeterminato) e sulle conversioni in contratti a tempo indeterminato. Nello specifico, la riforma dell’apprendistato ha introdotto, per le imprese con più di 9 dipendenti, nuovi obblighi di stabilizzazione degli apprendisti assunti ed ha innalzato il rapporto tra gli apprendisti e i lavoratori qualificati presenti in azienda. Al contrario, la riforma lascia inalterata la situazione per le imprese sotto i 10 dipendenti. Lo schema di incentivi per l’assunzione e la stabilizzazione dei lavoratori over-50 consta, invece, in un significativo abbattimento (50 per cento) dei contributi a carico impresa per i lavoratori con più di 50 anni, lasciando inalterata la situazione per i soggetti più giovani. Le suddette circostanze hanno reso possibile l’implementazione di un modello difference-in-difference in un contesto di regression discontinuity design, utilizzando dati mensili INPS. I risultati empirici dimostrano che la riforma dell’apprendistato ha effettivamente favorito la stabilizzazione degli apprendisti in contratti a tempo indeterminato. Lo schema di incentivi per gli over-50 sembrerebbe indurre nuove assunzioni tanto in contratti a tempo indeterminato quanto a tempo determinato. L’effetto sulle conversioni, invece, sembrerebbe trascurabile. [a cura dell'autore]
XIV n.s.

The aim of my thesis is to evaluate the impacts of several public policies in Australia. I apply tools common in the policy evaluation literature to identify the causal effect of these policies on outcomes that policymakers care about, such as student test scores, employment rates and wages. Although the tools I use are common, the identification strategies and datasets I use are novel. These identification strategies are developed by carefully studying Australia's institutional details. My first chapter examines whether an increase in capital spending in schools (e.g. to build a new library or classroom) affects student test scores. Exploiting a large-scale natural experiment and school-level administrative data, I find no evidence that an increase in capital spending improves student test scores. The achievement effects that I find are close to zero and precisely estimated. My second chapter assesses how changes in minimum wages affect the labour market outcomes of employees paid the minimum wage. I exploit Australia's detailed system of ‘award’ wages to implement a control strategy. I find that increases to minimum wages are almost fully passed on to employee wages (implying that firms largely comply with their legal obligations). Importantly, however, there is no evidence that these minimum wage changes affect hours worked or job loss. My third chapter explores whether the decline in union membership rates in Australia has contributed to low wages growth in recent years. My co-author and I argue that trends in unionisation rates are unlikely to account for much of the recent low wages growth. This reflects our finding that the ‘union wage growth premium’ has remained stable over recent decades and that the share of the workforce who receive that premium has also remained steady, contrary to conventional wisdom.

1. Re-assessing health care decentralization and its impact on infant mortality: evidence from the EU countries In this work, we propose to test the effects of health-care sector decentralization on infant mortality, a proxy for the quality of citizens’ health, adopting as unit of analysis 25 EU countries between 1995 and 2013. Moreover, we discuss and address the endogeneity of the model due to possible mismeasurement of the decentralization of the health-care sector, when proxied by the sole fiscal decentralization. Our results suggest that the positive effects of fiscal decentralization on the citizen’s health occur in institutional contexts in which central authorities have delegated political or managerial powers and made local authorities directly accountable in health matters. On the other hand, when the institutional or managerial requirements are absent the sole fiscal decentralization is not a guarantee of improvement for citizens’ health. 2. Does purchase centralization reduce public expenditure? Evidence from the Italian health-care system The introduction of Central Purchasing Bodies within the regional health care systems in Italy during the first decade of 2000s constituted a call for cost reduction and public expenditure restraint in the public health sector. Indeed, regional CPBs operating for local hospitals were introduced to centralize purchases of goods and services, with the aim of reducing prices and facilitate cost reductions, mainly leveraging on economies of scale and larger bargaining power. In this work, we examine this hypothesis adopting a difference-in-difference model to test the causal relationship of the introduction of regional CPBs operating in the health-care systems. Our findings show that per capita total expenditure is reduced to a range of 3-4%, according to the specification of the model, where local hospitals are supplied through a regional CPB. Specifically, this reduction is mainly driven by a subset of supplies, that is health services, while the impact on goods and other non-health services expenditure is not significant. Moreover, the obtained expenditure reduction is achieved without a significant downsizing of local services to citizens. 3. The Impact of 1974 Budget Act on U.S. Spending and Debt: a synthetic control approach The 1974 Budget Act marked a turning point in U.S. fiscal history. With the Act, Congress decisively asserted its budgetary power, becoming more independent from the President in developing the budget and setting overall levels of federal expenditures. Lawmakers at the time believed that the status quo, wherein Congress approved the budget in a piecemeal fashion, limited their budgetary authority and had caused deficits and spending to increase. In this work, we set out to discover how Congress’s solution – the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (or, 1974 Budget Act) – ultimately fared at restraining spending and debt. More specifically we use a synthetic control model to ask what would have happened without the 1974 Budget Act and finds that after the introduction of the Act, public debt-to-GDP and public expenditures-to-GDP both increased, but less than what would have happened without the Act.
1. Valutazione della decentralizzazione della sanità e del relativo impatto sulla mortalità infantile: evidenze dai Paesi dell’Unione Europea In questo lavoro, ci proponiamo di testare gli effetti della decentralizzazione del settore sanitario sulla mortalità infantile, come proxy della qualità della salute dei cittadini, adottando come unità di analisi 25 Paesi dell’Unione Europea tra il 1995 e il 2013. Inoltre, discutiamo l’endogeneità del modello dovuta a un possibile errore di misurazione della decentralizzazione del settore sanitario, quando è approssimato dalla sola decentralizzazione fiscale. I risultati suggeriscono che gli effetti positivi della decentralizzazione fiscale sulla salute dei cittadini si verificano in contesti istituzionali nei quali le autorità centrali hanno delegato poteri politici o manageriali e hanno reso le autorità locali direttamente responsabili in materia sanitaria. Al contrario, quando i requisiti istituzionali o manageriali sono assenti, la sola decentralizzazione fiscale non è una garanzia di miglioramento della salute dei cittadini. 2. La centralizzazione degli acquisti riduce la spesa pubblica? Evidenze dal Sistema Sanitario italiano L’introduzione delle Centrali Uniche di Committenza all’interno dei sistemi sanitari regionali in Italia durante la prima decade degli anni 2000 ha rappresentato una spinta verso la riduzione dei costi e la limitazione della spesa pubblica nel settore della sanità pubblica. Infatti, le Centrali di Committenza regionali che operano a beneficio delle ASL sono state introdotte per centralizzare gli acquisti di beni e servizi, con l'obiettivo di ridurre i prezzi e favorire la riduzione dei costi, soprattutto sfruttando le economie di scala e il maggiore potere contrattuale. In questo lavoro, esaminiamo questa ipotesi adottando un modello difference-in-difference per testare la relazione causale dell'introduzione di Centrali di Committenza regionali che operano all’interno dei sistemi di sanitari. I nostri risultati mostrano che la spesa totale pro capite si è ridotta di un intervallo tra il 3 e il 4%, in base alle specifiche del modello, nei contesti in cui le ASL si approvvigionano attraverso una Centrale di Committenza regionale. In particolare, questa riduzione è principalmente guidata dai servizi sanitari, mentre l'impatto sulle spese per l’acquisto di beni e di altri servizi non sanitari non è significativo. Inoltre, la riduzione della spesa ottenuta è ottenuta senza un significativo ridimensionamento dei servizi locali ai cittadini. 3. L’impatto del Budget Act 1974 sulla Spesa e sul Debito degli Stati Uniti d’America: un’analisi con controllo sintetico Il Budget Act 1974 segnò un punto di svolta nella storia fiscale degli Stati Uniti. Con questa legge, il Congresso ha fortemente affermato il proprio potere in materia di bilancio, diventando più indipendente dal Presidente nel suo sviluppo e fissando i livelli totali della spesa federale. I legislatori del tempo credevano che lo status quo secondo il quale il Congresso approvava il budget in modo frammentario limitasse la loro autorità di bilancio e avesse causato un aumento del deficit e della spesa. In questo lavoro, mostriamo in che modo la soluzione del Congresso – il Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act del 1974 (o più semplicemente il Budget Act) – sia riuscito a frenare la spesa e il debito. Più specificatamente, adottiamo un modello di controllo sintetico per interrogarci su cosa sarebbe successo senza l’introduzione del Budget Act 1974 e otteniamo che, dopo l’introduzione della legge, il rapporto tra debito pubblico e PIL e tra spesa pubblica e PIL sono entrambi aumentati, ma meno di quanto sarebbe accaduto senza la legge.

This dissertation is set in the context of a widely used framework for formalizing autonomous decision-making, namely Markov decision processes (MDPs). One of the key problems that arise in MDPs is that of evaluating a decision-making strategy, typically called a policy. It is often the case that data collected under the policy one wishes to evaluate is difficult or even impossible to obtain. In this case, data collected under some other policy needs to be used, a setting known as off-policy evaluation. The main goal of this dissertation is to offer new insights into the properties of methods for off-policy evaluation. This is achieved through a series of novel theoretical results and empirical illustrations. The first set of results concerns the bandit setting (single state, single decision step MDPs). In this basic setting, the bias and variance of various off-policy estimators can be computed in closed form without resorting to approximations. We also compare the bias-variance trade-offs for the different estimators, both theoretically and empirically. In the sequential setting (more than one decision step), a comparative empirical study of different off-policy estimators for MDPs with discrete state and action spaces is conducted. The methods compared include three existing estimators, and two new ones proposed in this dissertation. All of these estimators are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal. The empirical study illustrates how the relative behaviour of the estimators is affected by changes in problem parameters. The analysis for discrete MDPs is completed by recursive bias and variance formulas for the commonly used model-based estimator. These are the first analytic formulas for finite-horizon MDPs, and are shown to produce more accurate results than bootstrap estimates. The final contribution consists of introducing a new framework for bounding the return of a policy. The framework can be used whenever bounds on the next state and reward are available, regardless of whether the state and action spaces are discrete or continuous. If the next-state bounds are computed by assuming Lipschitz continuity of the transition function and using a batch of sampled transitions, then our framework can lead to tighter bounds than those proposed in previous work. Throughout this dissertation, the empirical performance of the estimators being studied is illustrated on several computational sustainability problems: a model of food-related greenhouse gas emissions, a mallard population dynamics model, and a fishery management domain.
Cette thèse se situe dans le contexte d'un cadre largement utilisé pour formaliser les méchanismes autonomes de décision, à savoir les processus de décision markoviens (MDP). L'un des principaux problèmes qui se posent dans les MDP est celui de l'évaluation d'une stratégie de prise de décision, généralement appelée une politique. C'est souvent le cas qu'obtenir des données recueillies dans le cadre de la politique qu'on souhaite évaluer est difficile, ou même impossible. Dans ce cas, des données recueillies sous une autre politique doivent être utilisées, une situation appelée "évaluation hors-politique". L'objectif principal de cette thèse est de proposer un nouvel éclairage sur les propriétés des méthodes pour l'évaluation hors-politique. Ce résultat est obtenu grâce à une série de nouveaux résultats théoriques et illustrations empiriques. La première série de résultats concerne des problèmes de type bandit (des MDP avec un seul état et une seule étape de décision). Dans cette configuration, le biais et la variance de divers estimateurs hors-politique peuvent être calculés sous forme fermée sans avoir recours à des approximations. Nous comparons également le compromis biais-variance pour les différents estimateurs, du point de vue théorique et empirique. Dans le cadre séquentiel (plus d'une étape de décision), une étude empirique comparative des différents estimateurs hors-politique pour les MDP avec des états et des actions discrètes est menée. Les méthodes comparées sont trois estimateurs existants, ainsi que deux nouveaux proposés dans cette thèse. Tous ces estimateurs se sont avérés convergents et asymptotiquement normaux. L'étude empirique montre comment le comportement relatif des estimateurs est affecté par des changements aux paramètres du problème. L'analyse des MDP discrets est complétée par des formules récursives pour le biais et la variance pour l'estimateur basé sur le modèle. Ce sont les premières formules analytiques pour les MDP à horizon fini, et on montre qu'ils produisent des résultats plus précis que les estimations "bootstrap".La contribution finale consiste à introduire un nouveau cadre pour délimiter le retour d'une politique. Le cadre peut être utilisé chaque fois que des bornes sur le prochain état et la récompense sont disponibles, indépendamment du fait que les espaces d'état et d'action soient discrètes ou continues. Si les limites du prochain état sont calculées en supposant la continuité Lipschitz de la fonction de transition et en utilisant un échantillon de transitions, notre cadre peut conduire à des bornes plus strictes que celles qui sont proposées dans des travaux antérieurs.Tout au long de cette thèse, la performance empirique des estimateurs étudiés est illustrée sur plusieurs problèmes de durabilité: un modèle de calcul des émissions de gaz à effet de serre associées à la consommation de nourriture, un modèle dynamique de la population des mallards, et un domaine de gestion de la pêche.

Efforts are currently underway in the US federal context to improve and strengthen evaluation practice and increase the use of evaluation results to inform policies and programs. However, these efforts remain unrealized, due partly to the lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework that views evaluation and related organizational processes and institutions as part of a larger system. Early intuitive theoretical taxonomies of evaluation policy suffer from the lack of connection to specific examples and instances, and are missing clear classification criteria that would allow practical application. To generate a grounded taxonomy of evaluation policy, this study surveyed members of the American Evaluation Association in 2009, asking them to generate examples of evaluation policy, and then to sort and rate these suggested policies. Results are analyzed using the concept mapping method of Trochim (1989), which first translates aggregate sorting decisions into conceptual “distances” on a two-dimensional dot map, then uses hierarchical cluster analysis to generate groupings of ideas. These groupings become the foundation for categories in a theoretical taxonomy. Findings reveal several different dimensions by which participants grouped evaluation policies, including the dimensions of “value” and “policy mechanism.” A values-by-mechanisms taxonomy and instructions for its use in an evaluation policy inventory process are proposed.

In this thesis, I analyze the impacts of the design and implementation of different environmental policy tools from a theoretical and empirical perspective: certificates providing information on the energy performance of buildings (chapter 1); urban road pricing schemes such as congestion charges (chapter 2); quantity-based policy tools to support production with non-polluting technologies (chapter 3).In chapter 1, co-authored with Luisa Dressler, we study how energy performance certificates (EPCs) impact the residential rental market. These certificates can help solve information asymmetries between landlords and tenants about the thermal quality of dwellings for rent, which, in turn, is expected to facilitate investment aimed at improving dwellings' energy performance. However, disclosure of EPCs is often incomplete, which hampers their effectiveness in relieving such information asymmetries. Moreover, even when a certificate is available, landlords do not always disclose it. This contradicts the so-called information unraveling result, according to which all landlords should disclose quality information unless it is costly to do so: in such a setting, information eventually unravels. Using a cross-sectional dataset of residential rental advertisements from the Belgian region of Brussels, we empirically evaluate incentives to disclose energy performance ratings. We find that two fundamental assumptions underlying the unraveling result are not confirmed in our setting: firstly, tenants value energy performance of rental property only when dwellings are of very high quality; secondly, tenants do not appear to rationally adjust their expectations when faced with dwellings that withhold their energy performance rating. Finally, we formulate specific policy advice for reforming EPC mechanisms to increase disclosure rates.In chapter 2, I study how urban congestion pricing impacts the use of sustainable mobility options such as bike sharing, presenting evidence from the city of Milan, Italy.As concern for air pollution grows in cities across the world, policies such as urban road pricing are rolled out to induce urban residents to opt for greener transport options. While several papers have analyzed the impact of urban road pricing on air pollution and on car use, this is the first analysis of its impact on sustainable travel behaviors, such as the use of bike sharing.I extend a stylized theoretical model of travel behavior to formalize the drivers of bike-sharing demand. Then, I exploit a panel dataset covering all bike-sharing trips carried out over an 8-year period in the city of Milan to estimate the impact of congestion pricing on bike-sharing use. The empirical strategy I employ in this study is based on the sudden suspension and reintroduction of congestion pricing, which generate a quasi-experimental setting. Adopting an event study approach, I find that suspending the congestion charge reduces daily bike-sharing traffic by about 5% in the short run. I show that, in Milan, congestion pricing mainly impacts bike-sharing use through the reduction of road traffic congestion, which makes cycling safer and more pleasant. The direct effect of the increased relative cost of car use is secondary in individual decisions to use bike-sharing. The role of these effects is likely to be context-specific, as they may be affected by the baseline level of urban congestion, the broader policy mix affecting the cost of driving and the specific design of the congestion pricing scheme.In chapter 3, co-authored with Renaud Foucart, we study the impact of different quantity-based tools that governments can use to support the production of homogeneous goods through clean rather than polluting inputs in a setting where production costs are uncertain.In recent years, many sectors have been disrupted by clean innovation, as clean inputs have emerged as close substitutes of polluting ones: for example, in the power sector renewable energy sources are increasingly used for electricity generation instead of fossil fuels. Whenever the negative externalities caused by polluting incumbent technologies are not internalized in production costs, emerging clean technologies are left at a disadvantage. For this reason, governments may want to design policy support schemes for emerging clean technologies.We develop a theoretical framework in which well-established polluting technologies entail known production and pollution costs, while using emerging green technologies requires higher, steeper and uncertain production costs. In this context, a government chooses between a range of quantity-based instruments to support the deployment of clean technologies based on cost estimates, as costs of production with green inputs are uncertain.We show that a cap on production with polluting inputs is the least distortionary among quantity instruments; next is a mandatory share of production with green inputs out of total production. Setting a policy objective in terms of a precise level of green inputs for production is the least efficient policy approach. This ranking results from the so-called “technology effect”, which determines the extent to which the market corrects cost estimation errors after real costs are observed.
Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

It is the superintendent's complex role and ultimate leadership responsibility for all district outcomes that suggests superintendents hold the key to successful reform. Research in the wake of the federal accountability and reform movement has focused on the principal as the mediator of school reform. Consequently, there is a dearth of research focusing on the superintendent's role in school reform, superintendent performance evaluation, and the state's responsibility to ensure a fair, equitable, and high-quality superintendent evaluation process through state-level policy. This study is a comprehensive policy analysis of state-level superintendent evaluation policies nationwide using a basic content analysis methodology and a researcher-developed content-analysis rubric. The study investigated the impact of the accountability and reform movement on superintendent performance evaluations, identified the current status of state-level superintendent evaluation policies and policy coherence with the personnel evaluation standards developed by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (Joint Committee), and determined whether a significant relationship exists between the breadth and depth of state-level superintendent evaluation policy and a state's political culture. Results show that 34 states have superintendent evaluation policies, but states vary substantially on the depth of superintendent evaluation policies and coherence with the Joint Committee standards. More states scored higher on the utility and feasibility standards than on the propriety and accuracy standards. There was no significant relationship, however, between a state's political culture and the breadth and depth of its superintendent evaluation policy as determine by the state's total content analysis rubric score.

Cette thèse regroupe trois travaux d'économétrie liés par l'application du machine learning et de la statistique en grande dimension à l'évaluation de politiques publiques. La première partie propose une alternative paramétrique au contrôle synthétique (Abadie and Gardeazabal, 2003; Abadie et al., 2010) sous la forme d'un estimateur reposant sur une première étape de type Lasso, dont on montre qu'il est doublement robuste, asymptotiquement Normal et ``immunisé'' contre les erreurs de première étape. La seconde partie étudie une version pénalisée du contrôle synthétique en présence de données de nature micro-économique. La pénalisation permet d'obtenir une unité synthétique qui réalise un arbitrage entre reproduire fidèlement l'unité traitée durant la période pré-traitement et n'utiliser que des unités non-traitées suffisamment semblables à l'unité traitée. Nous étudions les propriétés de cet estimateur, proposons deux procédures de type ``validation croisée'' afin de choisir la pénalisation et discutons des procédures d'inférence par permutation. La dernière partie porte sur l'application du Generic Machine Learning (Chernozhukov et al., 2018) afin d'étudier l'hétérogénéité des effets d'une expérience aléatoire visant à comparer la fourniture publique et privée d'aide à la recherche d'emploi. D'un point de vue méthodologique, ce projet discute l'extension du Generic Machine Learning à des expériences avec compliance imparfaite
This dissertation is comprised of three essays that apply machine learning and high-dimensional statistics to causal inference. The first essay proposes a parametric alternative to the synthetic control method (Abadie and Gardeazabal, 2003; Abadie et al., 2010) that relies on a Lasso-type first-step. We show that the resulting estimator is doubly robust, asymptotically Gaussian and ``immunized'' against first-step selection mistakes. The second essay studies a penalized version of the synthetic control method especially useful in the presence of micro-economic data. The penalization parameter trades off pairwise matching discrepancies with respect to the characteristics of each unit in the synthetic control against matching discrepancies with respect to the characteristics of the synthetic control unit as a whole. We study the properties of the resulting estimator, propose data-driven choices of the penalization parameter and discuss randomization-based inference procedures. The last essay applies the Generic Machine Learning framework (Chernozhukov et al., 2018) to study heterogeneity of the treatment in a randomized experiment designed to compare public and private provision of job counselling. From a methodological perspective, we discuss the extension of the Generic Machine Learning framework to experiments with imperfect compliance

Cette thèse regroupe trois travaux d'économétrie liés par l'application du machine learning et de la statistique en grande dimension à l'évaluation de politiques publiques. La première partie propose une alternative paramétrique au contrôle synthétique (Abadie and Gardeazabal, 2003; Abadie et al., 2010) sous la forme d'un estimateur reposant sur une première étape de type Lasso, dont on montre qu'il est doublement robuste, asymptotiquement Normal et ``immunisé'' contre les erreurs de première étape. La seconde partie étudie une version pénalisée du contrôle synthétique en présence de données de nature micro-économique. La pénalisation permet d'obtenir une unité synthétique qui réalise un arbitrage entre reproduire fidèlement l'unité traitée durant la période pré-traitement et n'utiliser que des unités non-traitées suffisamment semblables à l'unité traitée. Nous étudions les propriétés de cet estimateur, proposons deux procédures de type ``validation croisée'' afin de choisir la pénalisation et discutons des procédures d'inférence par permutation. La dernière partie porte sur l'application du Generic Machine Learning (Chernozhukov et al., 2018) afin d'étudier l'hétérogénéité des effets d'une expérience aléatoire visant à comparer la fourniture publique et privée d'aide à la recherche d'emploi. D'un point de vue méthodologique, ce projet discute l'extension du Generic Machine Learning à des expériences avec compliance imparfaite
This dissertation is comprised of three essays that apply machine learning and high-dimensional statistics to causal inference. The first essay proposes a parametric alternative to the synthetic control method (Abadie and Gardeazabal, 2003; Abadie et al., 2010) that relies on a Lasso-type first-step. We show that the resulting estimator is doubly robust, asymptotically Gaussian and ``immunized'' against first-step selection mistakes. The second essay studies a penalized version of the synthetic control method especially useful in the presence of micro-economic data. The penalization parameter trades off pairwise matching discrepancies with respect to the characteristics of each unit in the synthetic control against matching discrepancies with respect to the characteristics of the synthetic control unit as a whole. We study the properties of the resulting estimator, propose data-driven choices of the penalization parameter and discuss randomization-based inference procedures. The last essay applies the Generic Machine Learning framework (Chernozhukov et al., 2018) to study heterogeneity of the treatment in a randomized experiment designed to compare public and private provision of job counselling. From a methodological perspective, we discuss the extension of the Generic Machine Learning framework to experiments with imperfect compliance

This thesis refers to the Evidence Based Policy and Regulatory Impact Analysis. Both of them are important instruments for creating the economic policy. Evidence based policy is based on the collection and evaluation of the relevant data concerning the realization of either government or non-government programs. There are different methods for evaluating. Methods for the evaluation and the process of the evaluation are contained in the first part of this thesis. The second part is related to Regulatory Impact Analysis, which is linked to the production of the better regulation. Evolution of the RIA in the European union and Great Britain, analysis of the quality of the RIA and assessment of the implementation of the RIA into the legislative procedure is the main body of this thesis. The third part is dedicated to the RIA in the Czech Republic. The integration of the RIA into the legislation and the rules for the assessment of the impacts caused by the regulation are described in this part. This part also includes several RIAs analysis. The weak side of the RIA is described as well in the last part.

Despite the recent calls made by scholars in the evaluation field regarding the importance of evaluation policy and its influence on evaluation practice, there remains a lack of empirical evidence pertaining to the relationship between evaluation policy and evaluation capacity building (ECB). This study sought to explore the role of evaluation policy in building, or in impeding, organizational capacity to do and use evaluation. Through three interconnected studies—a review of an extensive sample of evaluation policies; interviews with scholars and practitioners from Canada, the United States, and Europe; and focus groups held with evaluation community members in Jordan and Turkey—the research identified a set of 10 categories of evaluation policy and proceeded to develop and validate an ecological framework depicting the relationship between evaluation policy and organizational capacity to do and use evaluation. The findings suggest that the role of evaluation policy in building organizational capacity for evaluation is moderated by a number of variables operating at the contextual, organizational and individual levels and that an in-depth understanding of the dynamic, unfolding and ongoing connections between ECB, on the one hand, and the broader social, economic, political and cultural systems associated with an organization, on the other, is essential in focusing ECB efforts. While the findings reveal that the role of evaluation policy in leveraging organizational evaluation capacity has been limited, they also show some evidence that if an evaluation policy is carefully designed to privilege learning as a central and desirable function of evaluation it will be more likely to have a positive influence on the organizational capacity to do and use evaluation. The investigation helps to advance understanding of these connections and provides some insight into the components of evaluation policies and the role that they might play in shaping the future of evaluation practice. This thesis makes an important contribution to the body of knowledge on organizational evaluation capacity. Although much has been published in the evaluation literature on ECB, its relationship to evaluation policy has not been explored or described based on empirical data. The main practical implication of the research is the possibility for organizations seeking to develop evaluation policies that are ECB-oriented to use the ecological framework and the set of evaluation policy categories as guides. Similarly, organizations that are seeking to review and update their current policies to make them more ECB-friendly stand to benefit in this way. Future research may focus on expanding the scope of the framework and its applicability for different types of organizations in different contexts. Finally, it is argued that the development of policies designed to promote learning is a necessary step towards the advancement of evaluation practice.

This dissertation identifies and explains the factors contributing to the presence and severity of U.S. foreign-policy blunders, or gross errors in strategic judgment resulting in significant harm to the national interest, since the Second World War. It hypothesizes that the grand strategy of preponderance and the overestimation of military power to transform the politics of other states have precipitated U.S. foreign-policy blunders since 1945. Examining the Vietnam War and Iraq War as case studies, it focuses on underlying conditions in the American national identity and the problematic foreign policy decision-making (FPDM) that corresponds to this bifurcated hypothesis, termed the overestimation/preponderance theoretical model (OPM). Four indicators operationalize the OPM: (1) how U.S. foreign policymakers estimated the capacity of military power to transform the political dynamics of the target state through intervention; (2) and (3) how U.S. actors and institutions affected the capacity of the partner state and hostile state and nonstate actors; and (4) how the foreign policy was justified and rationalized within the leadership of government and to the general public as it encountered disconfirming information. In each case, the grand strategy of preponderance instituted a bounded rationality of mission in the FPDM stage and the operationalization stage that precluded the inclusion of an unfavorable outcome. In each case, U.S. foreign policymakers greatly overestimated the capacity of the partner state to establish security and legitimacy and underestimated the capacity of hostile actors to mobilize and threaten the partner state. However, these preference-confirmation biases diametrically contradicted the assessment that victory would be easy to achieve; U.S. foreign policymakers promulgated this corresponding overestimation/underestimation even while inflating the threat far beyond what the actual threat to the national-security element of the national interest represented. The subsequent implementing of this inverted calculation created a national-security national interest where none was extant, then significantly harmed that new interest via intervention. This tactical application of the grand strategy of preponderance facilitated the strategic-tactical gap in U.S. foreign policy by creating monsters in order to have monsters to slay, consistent with the ideological tradition of the imperative of crusade in the modern history of American foreign relations.

This thesis is comprised of a series of published papers relating to the evaluation of active assistance measures for the unemployed in Australia. It offers both applied evaluations of active assistance measures as well as critical assessment of the evaluation approaches that have dominated the literature and policy formation in Australia. "Active" assistance for the unemployed is distinguished from "passive" assistance, such as income support.The motivation behind the work lies in the fact that a very large amount of public expenditure is directed to active assistance for the unemployed. Over $2 billion dollars was spent on labour market programs at the height of the Working Nation package in each of 1995-96 and 1996-97, and $1.5 billion was allocated to "labour market assistance to jobseekers and industry" in the most recent (2001-02) Commonwealth budget. Despite this considerable past and ongoing expenditure, the evaluation effort in Australia has been far short of international best practice. As a consequence, there is no convincing empirical evidence as to how effectively these public resources are being used, or of the relative merits of various options in the design of active interventions for the unemployed.Ultimately, the goal of the research is to improve supply-side policies designed to address unemployment. As stated, it aims to do this through original empirical evaluations of programs and through critical assessment of existing evaluations and institutional arrangements.

The main objective of this research is to develop a systematic approach for comprehensive ex-post evaluation of urban policy. In broad terms, urban policies are central government initiatives applied in a spatially targeted manner within urban areas where specific needs have been identified. 'Comprehensive' is defined as the attempt to answer all the questions policy-makers and stakeholders are likely to raise at the various stages of the planning and implementation process. In moving towards the achievement of this objective a number of different, yet supplementary, sources of knowledge and experience are examined. Part 1 reviews the underlying assumptions and strengths and weaknesses of existing appraisal methods and examines their applicability in ex-post evaluation and the choice among them. It also examines the different views and models of both monitoring and implementation analysis and the role each can play within a comprehensive evaluation approach. Part 2 examines evaluation methods adopted in a number of case studies in various fields. It starts with the first hand experience in urban policy evaluation within a governmental context. Then, it critically reviews the methodology adopted for evaluation in a number of case studies in the field of urban policy. Evaluation traditions in the fields of regional (economic) policy in Britain and, trunk road and motorway schemes in the UK, USA and the Netherlands are also reviewed. These different strands are brought together in the form of a flexible systematic approach for comprehensive ex-post evaluation of urban policy. The choice of the 'components' of the approach is based, to a large extent, on the first part of the research. However, the organisation of the approach and the exact role each tool can play are greatly informed by the second part.

Cette thèse présente quatre tentatives indépendantes d’évaluations de politiques publiques, mettant en application les méthodes microéconométriques récentes. Après un premier chapitre présentant un résumé en français, le deuxième chapitre évalue l’impact de la réforme dite du bonus/malus écologique sur les émissions de CO2. Celle-ci offre une source d’identification crédible de la sensibilité des choix des consommateurs aux incitations financières. Les estimations suggèrent un bilan négatif de la mesure, du fait de forts effets volumes. Le troisième chapitre évalue la capacité de dispositifs fiscaux à redynamiser l’activité économique locale, à travers le dispositif des Zones Franches Urbaines. L’accès à des données locales précises permet d’évaluer l’impact des exonérations fiscales accordées aux entreprises s’installant dans les ZFU de deuxième génération. Celles-ci auraient un impact positif mais faible sur la création d’entreprise et l’emploi en comparaison avec les autres zones défavorisées similaires. Le quatrième chapitre s’intéresse aux conséquences des contrats temporaires sur les trajectoires professionnelles. En contrôlant des biais d’hétérogénéité individuelle par un modèle à effets fixes, on montre que les CDD augmentent significativement les transitions vers l’emploi stable par rapport au chômage. En revanche, le travail intérimaire n’améliore que marginalement ces transitions. Le cinquième chapitre traite des effets des augmentations du salaire minimum créées par loi Fillon sur les inégalités salariales. Les estimations suggèrent que les augmentations de salaire minimum auraient un effet significatif mais faible sur les distributions de salaires
This dissertation proposes four independent evaluations of French public policies, using recent micro-econometrics methods. After a first chapter that presents a summary in French, the second chapter studies the impact of the French “ecological bonus/malus” (feebate) policy on total CO2 emissions. As the policy was implemented in a very span of time, it provides a credible source of identification for the sensitivity of consumers to financial incentives. The estimates suggest that the policy has a negative impact, as it increases total CO2 emissions. The third chapter examines the capacity of fiscal policies to foster employment and economic activities in targeted areas, through the French ZFU (enterprises zones). With precise local data we could evaluate the impact of tax exemptions provided to firms implemented in the second wave of enterprise zones. Enterprise zones have a significant but small impact on business creation and employment by comparison with other similar disadvantaged areas. The fourth chapter considers consequences of temporary contracts on professional trajectories. A dynamic fixed-effect model is used to deal with unobserved heterogeneity. According to these estimates, fixed-term contracts significantly increase the transition intensity to permanent contract relatively to unemployment. By contrast, temporary agency work does not significantly improve transition to regular jobs. The fifth chapter deals with the impact of minimum wages increases on earnings inequalities. Estimates suggest significant but small on earnings distribution

This thesis is comprised of a series of published papers relating to the evaluation of active assistance measures for the unemployed in Australia. It offers both applied evaluations of active assistance measures as well as critical assessment of the evaluation approaches that have dominated the literature and policy formation in Australia. "Active" assistance for the unemployed is distinguished from "passive" assistance, such as income support.The motivation behind the work lies in the fact that a very large amount of public expenditure is directed to active assistance for the unemployed. Over $2 billion dollars was spent on labour market programs at the height of the Working Nation package in each of 1995-96 and 1996-97, and $1.5 billion was allocated to "labour market assistance to jobseekers and industry" in the most recent (2001-02) Commonwealth budget. Despite this considerable past and ongoing expenditure, the evaluation effort in Australia has been far short of international best practice. As a consequence, there is no convincing empirical evidence as to how effectively these public resources are being used, or of the relative merits of various options in the design of active interventions for the unemployed.Ultimately, the goal of the research is to improve supply-side policies designed to address unemployment. As stated, it aims to do this through original empirical evaluations of programs and through critical assessment of existing evaluations and institutional arrangements.

The industrial restructuring of the 1970s, the sluggish economic growth of the 1980s and the difficult macroeconomic scenario of the early 1990s which preceded the Italy's joining of the EMU, gradually reduced the space for Keynesian economic policies in the country. In certain geographical areas, unemployment remained high over a long period of time and the Italian state had to confront this situation which was becoming socially and politically unsustainable. The solution found involved the long-term unemployed in a wide range of activities provided by public bodies, called socially and publicly useful jobs. At the end of the 1990s, under pressure from neoliberalism, many public bodies outsourced their public services, labour market deregulation was pursued, while supply-side labour polices gained ground. This thesis examines the policy process during the paradigm shift, evaluates its impact on unemployment reduction, discusses the ways in which the policy's outcomes were achieved, and highlights the role played by institutions during this long-term process. The approach chosen to evaluate the policy of socially and useful jobs distinguishes between three intrinsically linked stages of the policy process: policy-making, implementation and take-up. Recognising the central role of institutions in providing the context in which the policy process develops, the approach chosen for this analysis is historical-institutionalism. It is applied within the broader framework of the political economy which impacted on the transformation of the Italian welfare state and the rise of workfare practices. The policy process evaluation led to some interesting findings. Firstly, many unemployed were re-inserted into the labour market due to their participation in socially and publicly useful jobs. Secondly, the activities they delivered allowed the communities to avoid disruption to important services and helped the state to save funds through the use of an inexpensive and productive workforce. Thirdly, the public administrations considered the outsourcing of services successful when they received high quality services from workers who were already known to them and were easily managed. Fourthly, the participation of the private companies in the last stage of the policy did not guarantee efficiency gains and, in several cases, the public administrations preferred to employ the socially and publicly useful workers directly.

BACKGROUND The current impetus for developing alcohol and/or other drugs (AODs) workplace policies in Australia is to reduce workplace AOD impairment, improve safety, and prevent AOD-related injury in the workplace. For these policies to be effective, they need to be informed by scientific evidence. Evidence to inform the development and implementation of effective workplace AOD policies is currently lacking. There does not currently appear to be conclusive evidence for the effectiveness of workplace AOD policies in reducing impairment and preventing AOD-related injury. There is also no apparent evidence regarding which factors facilitate or impede the success of an AOD policy, or whether, for example, unsuccessful policy outcomes were due to poor policy or merely poor implementation of the policy. It was the aim of this research to undertake a process, impact, and outcome evaluation of a workplace AOD policy, and to contribute to the body of knowledge on the development and implementation of effective workplace AOD policies. METHODS The research setting was a state-based power-generating industry in Australia between May 2008 and May 2010. Participants for the process evaluation study were individuals who were integral to either the development or the implementation of the workplace AOD policy, or both of these processes (key informants), and comprised the majority of individuals who were involved in the process of developing and/or implementing the workplace AOD policy. The sample represented the two main groups of interest—management and union delegates/employee representatives—from all three of the participating organisations. For the impact and outcome evaluation studies, the population included all employees from the three participating organisations, and participants were all employees who consented to participate in the study and who completed both the pre-and post-policy implementation questionnaires. Qualitative methods in the form of interviews with key stakeholders were used to evaluate the process of developing and implementing the workplace AOD policy. In order to evaluate the impact of the policy with regard to the risk factors for workplace AOD impairment, and the outcome of the policy in terms of reducing workplace AOD impairment, quantitative methods in the form of a non-randomised single group pre- and post-test design were used. Changes from Time 1 (pre) to Time 2 (post) in the risk factors for workplace AOD impairment, and changes in the behaviour of interest—(self-reported) workplace AOD impairment—were measured. An integration of the findings from the process, impact, and outcome evaluation studies was undertaken using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. RESULTS For the process evaluation study Study respondents indicated that their policy was developed in the context of comparable industries across Australia developing workplace AOD policies, and that this was mainly out of concern for the deleterious health and safety impacts of workplace AOD impairment. Results from the process evaluation study also indicated that in developing and implementing the workplace AOD policy, there were mainly ‗winners', in terms of health and safety in the workplace. While there were some components of the development and implementation of the policy that were better done than others, and the process was expensive and took a long time, there were, overall, few unanticipated consequences to implementing the policy and it was reported to be thorough and of a high standard. Findings also indicated that overall the policy was developed and implemented according to best-practice in that: consultation during the policy development phase (with all the main stakeholders) was extensive; the policy was comprehensive; there was universal application of the policy to all employees; changes in the workplace (with regard to the policy) were gradual; and, the policy was publicised appropriately. Furthermore, study participants' responses indicated that the role of an independent external expert, who was trusted by all stakeholders, was integral to the success of the policy. For the impact and outcome evaluation studies Notwithstanding the limitations of pre- and post-test study designs with regard to attributing cause to the intervention, the findings from the impact evaluation study indicated that following policy implementation, statistically significant positive changes with regard to workplace AOD impairment were recorded for the following variables (risk factors for workplace AOD impairment): Knowledge; Attitudes; Perceived Behavioural Control; Perceptions of the Certainty of being punished for coming to work impaired by AODs; Perceptions of the Swiftness of punishment for coming to work impaired by AODs; and Direct and Indirect Experience with Punishment Avoidance for workplace AOD impairment. There were, however, no statistically significant positive changes following policy implementation for Behavioural Intentions, Subjective Norms, and Perceptions of the Severity of punishment for workplace AOD impairment. With regard to the outcome evaluation, there was a statistically significant reduction in self-reported workplace AOD impairment following the implementation of the policy. As with the impact evaluation, these findings need to be interpreted in light of the limitations of the study design in being able to attribute cause to the intervention alone. The findings from the outcome evaluation study also showed that while a positive change in self-reported workplace AOD impairment following implementation of the policy did not appear to be related to gender, age group, or employment type, it did appear to be related to levels of employee general alcohol use, cannabis use, site type, and employment role. Integration of the process, impact, and outcome evaluation studies There appeared to be qualitative support for the relationship between the process of developing and implementing the policy, and the impact of the policy in changing the risk factors for workplace AOD impairment. That is, overall the workplace AOD policy was developed and implemented well and, following its implementation, there were positive changes in the majority of measured risk factors for workplace AOD impairment. Quantitative findings lend further support for a relationship between the process and impact of the policy, in that there was a statistically significant association between employee perceived fidelity of the policy (related to the process of the policy) and positive changes in some risk factors for workplace AOD impairment (representing the impact of the policy). Findings also indicated support for the relationship between the impact of the policy in changing the risk factors for workplace AOD impairment and the outcome of the policy in reducing workplace AOD impairment: positive changes in the risk factors for workplace AOD impairment (impact) were related to positive changes in self reported workplace AOD impairment (representing the main goal and outcome of the policy). CONCLUSIONS The findings from the research indicate support for the conclusion that the policy was appropriately implemented and that it achieved its objectives and main goal. The Doctoral research findings also addressed a number of gaps in the literature on workplace AOD impairment, namely: the likely effectiveness of AOD policies for reducing AOD impairment in the workplace, which factors in the development and implementation of a workplace AOD policy are likely to facilitate or impede the effectiveness of the policy to reduce workplace AOD impairment, and which employee groups are less likely to respond well to policies of this type. The findings from this research not only represent an example of translational, applied research—through the evaluation of the study industry's policy—but also add to the body of knowledge on workplace AOD policies and provide policy-makers with evidence which may be useful in the development and implementation of effective workplace AOD policies. Importantly, the findings espouse the importance of scientific evidence in the development, implementation, and evaluation of workplace AOD policies.

In this dissertation research, I try to deepen the understanding of the logic and history behind science of science policy approaches and to substitute for this scientific evidence-based science policy model an evidence-critical and -informed model in which scientific and democratic claims are promoted simultaneously. Science of science policy, or what I call the scientizing science policy (SSP) discourse, is a strategic response of science policy community members to the following two socio-political developments: the government performance management reform movement and a new social contract of science. These two developments have motivated the science policy community to construct new science R&D management strategies that make science R&D investment more effective and economically beneficial than before. Former Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger played an important role in articulating an SSP approach at the federal level that opened up a political space for the larger SSP discourse to emerge and take hold. Other heterogeneous science policy community actors, including science agency managers and academic researchers, have also engaged and played major roles in shaping the premises, strategies, and directions that make up the SSP discourse by articulating their own approaches to SSP. The SSP discourse constitutes a series of strategies such as economizing and quantifying R&D investment decisions. In particular, to implement the ideas of performance reform and a new social contract of science in the field of science policy and management, the SSP community members have prioritized the development of data, models, and evidence related to federal R&D investment by funding studies on new scientific data, tools, and quantitative methods through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP) program. Interagency collaboration organized and supported by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is another key feature promoted by the SSP community. Through this research of the rise and development of the SSP discourse, I emphasize the following aspects that are relevant to both science policy practice and research community members. First, the SSP discourse demonstrates the influence of the performance reform movement on science, technology, and innovation policy and R&D management. Second, the SSP discourse has the strong potential to shift science policy makersâ focus from planning and implementing to evaluating federal R&D programs. Third, the SSP discourse not only reflects, but also promotes the tendency of public policy makers, politicians, and the public to rely on scientific claims and evidence when they are engaged in discussions or policy decision making processes related to science and technology. Fourth, the SSP discourse alters the balance of authority and influence among science policy actors, including science agency managers, scientists, and executive branch offices in the decision making process on federal R&D priority and investment. Fifth, even though there are conflicts and disagreements among science policy community members on the visions and future of the NSF SciSIP program, the SSP discourse is valuable as a space in which heterogeneous science policy research and practice community members can interact, learn from each other, and collaborate to develop U.S. science, technology, and innovation policy. I conclude by proposing an evidence-critical and -informed science policy in which the SSP discourse contributes to promoting democratic values in the science policy decision process. In particular, the evidence-critical and -informed model focuses on not only using scientific data and evidence when making federal R&D decisions, but also on promoting the democratic and deliberative process in monitoring R&D activitiesâ performance and social outcomes. In this model, I view the public as a legitimate stakeholder for evaluating federal R&D investment. This evidence-informed model can be implemented under the SSP discourse if the new R&D data, models, and tools developed by the NSF SciSIP-funded research are coupled with a new government performance website in which the public can access information about federal R&D activities as well as provide feedback about R&D investments to science policy makers.
Ph. D.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1991.
Title from title page screen, viewed December 19, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Rodney P. Riegle (chair), J. Christopher Eisele, D. Michael Risen, Richard Berg, George Padavil. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-157) and abstract. Also available in print.

Of the many components of reform to Australian government administration in the 1980s, the introduction of systematic program evaluation is perhaps one of the least examined. This thesis seeks to assess the Federal Labor Government's evaluation strategy as an instrument for enhancing what are here termed the policy management capacities of central agencies. It proceeds in two steps. First, the thesis traces in detail the development of program evaluation policy in Australian federal government from the effectiveness reviews of the Coombs Report of 1976 to the current evaluation strategy, and argues that, despite competing purposes for it, evaluation was intended primarily to serve decision making in central government. This policy aim was cemented by the economic crisis of the mid 1980s and framed around budgetary issues by its steward, the Department of Finance. Second, in order to assess the impact of the evaluation strategy, the thesis develops a framework for analysing program evaluation as one instrument for strengthening the core policy management functions of central agencies. In this context, policy management is essentially a coordination task. The contribution of evaluation to two aspects of policy management-resource coordination, and policy development and coordination-is examined. The findings confirm that attempts to formalise evaluation processes have had a variable impact- central budgetary processes remain dependent on relatively informal assessment procedures, although recent attempts to enhance policy coordination through the evaluation of policy advising processes have proved potentially to be more influential. In conclusion, the thesis argues that the evaluation strategy represented a credible attempt to better inform policy making in central government, but suffered for want of clear policy design and firm execution that resulted in only a marginal impact on these processes.