Benefit-Cost Analysis Center

The core aim of the Benefit-Cost Analysis Center is to improve the understanding and use of benefit-cost analysis (or BCA) as a decision-making tool.
Our research and outreach is geared toward:

• Improving and standardizing benefit-cost analysis methodology,
• Strengthening relationships between institutions that use it,
• Diseminating information about its use and misuse, and
• Expanding its use when appropriate.

This involves working with a variety of government agencies and academic professionals whose work involves benefit-cost analysis (BCA). We accomplish this through:

• Founding the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis,
• Convening with government benefit-cost analysts at the federal, state, and local levels, and
• Publishing academic papers on benefit-cost analysis (BCA) methodology

Upcoming Conferences

Advancing Social Policy-Making Through Benefit-Cost Analysis: June 24-25, 2008
First Annual Meeting for the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis: June 25-26, 2008

Find out more about benefit-cost analysis (BCA) and our conferences and papers.
Support for the Benefit-Cost Analysis Center is provided by the Evans School of Public Affairs and the MacArthur Foundation.

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Join our mailing list to receive updates on our news and events.

Civic Engagement for the 21st Century

The nonpartisan Civic Engagement for the 21st Century Project at the Evans School is dedicated to forming a new model for solving complex community challenges by renewing and transforming civic engagement into a process that:

• Better informs citizens
• Fosters improved decision-making
• Capitalizes on the thoughts of a spectrum of people
• And improves the quality of life for current and future generations

The project goes beyond theory to actually convene people around current regional challenges through various events at the Evans School.

Find out more about the background of the project.

Community Vitality Project

Understanding Levers to Reduce Poverty for Individuals and Communities

What are key ways to reduce poverty in communities? With funding from the Northwest Area Foundation, researchers from the Evans School are working to understand what policies are most effective in communities that vary by urban-rural location, in terms of racial and ethnic diversity, and with regard potential economic linkages with surrounding areas.

The five-year, $1.5 million Community Vitality Project will produce research papers that analyze the levers that both reduce poverty and enhance community vitality, with the goal of making recommendations for effective policies within the 8 states that the Northwest Area Foundation serves: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa.

Nonprofit Accountability Clubs

Nonprofit Accountability Clubs Workshop:
Voluntary Regulation of Nongovernmental and Nonprofit Organizations

This one-day workshop brings senior nonprofit scholars to the University of Washington to present work on the emergence of nonprofit voluntary accountability clubs around the globe.

When: April 25, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Where: Allen Library Peterson Room
RSVP: gugerty@u.washington.edu or 206.221.4599

Workshop Packet (484 KB PDF)

Workshop Schedule

Coffee and Light Breakfast: 8:30 - 9:00 a.m.

Introduction: 9:00 - 9:15 a.m.
Welcome and Overview of the Clubs Framework and the Project
Draft Conceptual Framework Paper (377 KB PDF)
Mary Kay Gugerty and Aseem Prakash

Session 1 - Club History and Benefits: 9:15 - 10:30 a.m. (via teleconference)
Benefits of Accreditation for Fundraising Nonprofits in the Netherlands (259 KB PDF)
René Bekkers, Utrecht University and Vrije Universitei Amsterdam, Netherlands

A History of Nonprofit Clubs in the United States (291 KB PDF)
Woods Bowman, DePaul University

Break: 10:30 - 10:45 a.m.

Session 2 - Club Emergence and Structure: 10:45 - 12:15 a.m.
The Emergence of Collective Accountability Standards in the Humanitarian Sector (390 KB PDF) by Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre, George Washington University
Discussant: Christi Siver, Department of Political Science, University of Washington

What Determines the Emergence and Structure of Clubs Among State Nonprofit Associations? (250 KB PDF) by Mary Tschirhart, Maxwell School of Syracuse University
Discussant: Steve Page, Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington

Lunch at Shalimar Restaurant: 12:15 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Session 3 - Club Sponsorship and Structure: 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Nonprofit Umbrella Associations as Reluctant Clubs (232 KB PDF) by Dennis R. Young, Georgia State University
Discussant: Christopher Heurlin, Department of Political Science, University of Washington

The Impact of Sponsorship on Club Design (286 KB PDF) by Angela Bies, Texas A&M University
Discussant: Stephan Hamburg, Department of Political Science, University of Washington

The Emergence of Nonprofit Clubs in Developing Countries (71 KB PDF) by Mary Kay Gugerty, Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington
Discussant: Sara Curran, Jackson School of International Affairs, University of Washington

Break: 3:30 - 3:45 p.m.

Session 4 - Club Structure and Effectiveness: 3:45 - 5:00 p.m.
Does Self-Regulation Work? Some Evidence from Europe (63 KB PDF)
Andreas Ortmann of Charles University Economics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Can Self-Regulatory Club Goods Serve Mission Accountability? (299 KB PDF) by Dana Brakman Reiser, Brooklyn Law School
Discussant: Andrea Lairson, University of Washington School of Law

Reception and Dinner, University of Washington Club: 6:30 p.m.

*This workshop is sponsored by the Evans School of Public Affairs and the Marc Lindenberg Center of Humanitarian Action, International Developtment, and Global Citizenship.

2008 Working Papers

The Public Interest and State Policies Affecting Academic Research in California
By William Zumeta

Evans School Working Paper No. 2008-01 (1.5 MB PDF)

• Abstract: This paper, part of a forthcoming comparative volume on “The Public Interest and the Academic Research Enterprise,” edited by David Dill (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) and Frans Van Vught (European Commission and University of Twente, the Netherlands), analyzes public policies toward academic research in the U.S. state of California. Taking a broad view of state research policies, it first surveys the history and recent trends in the state’s support of the research and graduate education missions of the University of California, identifying serious problems and emerging challenges plaguing the state’s prospects to sustain UC’s historic elite quality in these areas, which underpins the state’s research effort. Then, much of the paper is devoted to a survey and analysis of the political economy of California’s numerous state funded research programs, both those based at the University of California and the increasingly important ones (most notably the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine or CIRM) independent of UC. Broadly, the conclusion is that even a state as large and wealthy as California is poorly situated to develop coherent and independent research policies as states lack the necessary independent brokering institutions analogous to the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health at the federal level, and policymakers have fewer buffers against political influences. Moreover, in California particularly the populist, highly polarized and media-influenced political culture makes coherent state policymaking for research a major challenge. Finally, California policymakers have done little to build institutional expertise in this area in either the executive or legislative branch.

Re-visiting Socially-Optimal Vaccine Subsidies: An Empirical Application in Kolkata, India
By Joseph Cook, Marc Jeuland, Brian Maskery, Donald Lauria, Dipika Sur, John Clemens, and Dale Whittington

Evans School Working Paper No. 2008-02 (535 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Although it is well-known that vaccines against many infectious diseases confer positive economic externalities via indirect protection, analysts have typically ignored possible herd protection effects in policy analyses of vaccination programs. This paper develops a transparent, accessible economic framework for assessing the private and social economic benefits of vaccination, and employs economic data from stated preference studies (e.g., contingent valuation and choice modeling) to demonstrate socially-optimal policies, starting with a depiction of Pigouvian subsidies applied to herd protection from vaccination programs. Our depictions of marginal social benefits highlight some counter-intuitive implications of herd protection not commonly observed in the applied policy literature. We illustrate the approach using economic and epidemiological data from two neighborhoods in Kolkata, India, and recent data on the indirect effects of cholera vaccination in Matlab, Bangladesh. We fit a simple mathematical model of how protection changes with vaccine coverage, and use new data on costs and private demand for cholera vaccines in Kolkata, India to approximate the optimal Pigouvian subsidy. We find that, if the optimal subsidy is unknown, selling vaccines at full marginal cost may, under some circumstances, be a preferable second-best option to providing them for free.

The Cost-Effectiveness of Typhoid Vi Vaccination Programs: Calculations for Four Urban Sites in Four Asian Countries
By Joseph Cook, Marc Jeuland, Dale Whittington, Chirstin Poulous, John Clemens, Dipkia Sur, Dang Duc Anh, Magdarina Agtini, Zulfiqar Bhutta, and the Domie Typhoid Economics Study Group

Evans School Working Paper No. 2008-03 (500 KB PDF)

• Abstract: The burden of typhoid fever remains high in impoverished settings and increasing antibiotic resistance is making treatment costly. One strategy for reducing the typhoid morbidity and mortality is vaccination with the Vi polysaccharide vaccine. We use a wealth of new economic and epidemiological data to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Vi vaccination against typhoid in sites in four Asian cities: Kolkata (India), Karachi (Pakistan), N. Jakarta (Indonesia), Hue (Vietnam). We estimate that a vaccination program targeting all children (2-14) would cost US$189, US$232, and US$712 per DALY averted in Kolkata, Karachi, and N. Jakarta. These programs would be considered “very cost-effective” under a wide range of assumptions. Community-based vaccination programs that also target adults in Kolkata and Jakarta are less cost-effective because incidence is lower in adults than children, but are also likely to be “very cost-effective”. Any type of program in Hue, Vietnam would not be cost effective (US$3,924 per DALY averted for a program targeting children 5-14yrs old) because of the low typhoid incidence there. Although the study does not address the important question of whether the social economic benefits of vaccination exceed the social costs, Vi vaccination programs targeting children in the sites in Kolkata, Karachi and N. Jakarta look to be attractive investments. They would be among the better half of interventions for Asia compiled by the Disease Control Priorities Project, although health policymakers will want to carefully compare the cost effectiveness of Vi vaccination with other public health priorities.

2007 Working Papers

The Moral Journey of Environmentalism: From Wilderness to Place
By Andrew Light
Evans School Working Paper No. 2007-07 (125 KB PDF)

• Abstract: This conversational and slightly autobiographical essay attempts an answer to the question "What is environmentalism?" It offers a narrative of the progress of contemporary environmentalism from a movement largely concerned with questions of wilderness to one more focused on the normative dimensions of place.

Does a Public Environmental Philosophy Need a Convergence Hypothesis?
By Andrew Light
Evans School Working Paper No. 2007-06 (142 KB PDF)

• Abstract: The "convergence hypothesis," originally introduced into the literature in environmental ethics by Bryan Norton in 1992, argues that under certain conditions those holding the view that moral obligations can only be extended to humans (anthropocentrists) and those holding the view that moral obligations can be extended beyond humans to other animals and perhaps to whole ecosystems (nonanthropocentrists) can nonetheless agree on the same environmental policies. In his more recent work Norton distances himself from this hypothesis arguing in favor of a strategy of overcoming these divisions. This paper argues that the convergence hypothesis is still needed for those, like Norton, who count themselves as "environmental pragmatists" and defends the hypothesis against some of its critics.

Restorative Relationships: From Artifacts to Natural Systems
By Andrew Light
Evans School Working Paper No. 2007-05 (129 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Several influential environmental ethicists have long argued that restored ecosystems can never duplicate the value of original ecosystems and further may represent an affront to those systems. A key part of this argument is that ecological restorations are not ?natural? but rather humanly created artifacts. While it is held that we do have moral obligations to natural entities we do not have moral obligations to artifacts. I accept this description of what restorations are and argue that we can have substantive moral relationships with, or at least through, artifacts. If this argument succeeds then the fact that ecological restorations are human artifacts should be inconsequential to the determination of their value.

Models of NGO Self-Regulation: Theory and Evidence from Africa
By Mary Kay Gugerty
Evans School Working Paper No. 2007-04 (62 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play an increasingly important role in public service provision and policy making in sub-Saharan Africa, giving rise to needs for new forms of regulatory oversight of such entities. In response, a number of initiatives in NGO self-regulation are taking place in Africa, a region not typically noted for its institutional innovation. This paper examines the emergence of these initiatives through cross-national data on 20 African countries and three case studies. Self-regulation in Africa falls into three types: national guilds, NGO-led clubs and voluntary codes of conduct. National guilds have the advantage of providing regulatory coverage for the entire sector, but are difficult to establish because they require strong pre-existing collective action institutions and good-faith cooperation on the part of governments. Voluntary clubs are increasingly prevalent; clubs have stronger standards and regulatory power that guilds, but typically have much weaker coverage. Voluntary codes are the most common form of self-regulation, but have the weakest regulatory strength.

The School Finance Redesign Project: A Synthesis of Project Work to Date
By Paul T. Hill
Evans School Working Paper No. 2007-03 (345 KB PDF)

• Abstract: The School Finance Redesign Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeks to answer the question, "How can resources help schools achieve the higher levels of student performance that state and national education standards now demand?" To this end, the project initiated more than 30 research studies and expert papers. The project's research reports and commissioned papers describe a system in which educators understand the need to press for higher achievement and are attempting to implement reforms to improve student learning. However, SFRP's work also indicates that the current education finance system is primarily an accident of history and politics, consequently impeding efficient resource allocation and use. SFRP findings point to plausible ways of focusing money, time, and attention on learning, including applying lessons from the learning sciences, implementing system incentives, supporting out-of-school interventions and core instruction, and revising funding formulas and allocation practices. Finally, this research points to the need for ongoing research into best practices, out-of-the-box thinking, and a system shaped by the concept of continuous improvement.

The effects of sexual orientation and marital status on how couples hold their money
By Marieka M. Klawitter
Evans School Working Paper No. 2007-02 (192 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Previous research has shown that intrahousehold bargaining power in different-sex couples affects household expenditures and how families hold their money. This paper examines the portfolio of bank accounts held by same-sex and different-sex couples and its relationship to bargaining power and individual and relationship characteristics. Data from the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances suggest that married couples are much more likely to hold money jointly than are same-sex or unmarried different-sex couples, even after accounting for the effects of other characteristics. However, many couples of all types hold money in joint accounts and do so more often in longer term relationships and when rearing children. Proxies for bargaining power help predict whether money will be held in individual accounts for unmarried different-sex and same-sex couples, but not for married couples. These patterns could reflect greater matching of married couples on preferences or the effects of legal and social institutions that differ by marital status and sexual orientation.

Women's Access to Credit: Does it Matter for Household Efficiency?
By Diana Fletschner
Evans School Working Paper No. 2007-01 (122 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Improving poor households' access to capital is a common element of rural strategies that are designed to induce growth. To inform this notion a number of studies have sought to assess the negative impact of credit constraints on farm households' efficiency. By and large, these studies have used the household as the unit of analysis, an approach that can be problematic in settings where there are gender-based market imperfections and where there are significant gender-based asymmetries in how rights, resources, and responsibilities are distributed within the household. The analysis in this article shows that imperfections in the capital market impair households' efficiency and that women's constraints matter: in addition to the efficiency loss associated to the husbands' credit constraints, when women are unable to meet their needs for capital their households experienced an additional drop in efficiency of 11%. These results have two important implications. First, they indicate that studies which try to measure the efficiency impact of credit constraints based only on the household's head (if present, typically the husband) are likely to provide an incomplete assessment, and significantly underestimate the true impact of those constraints. In addition, these results provide efficiency-based arguments for enhancing women's access to capital.

2006 Working Papers

Banked or Unbanked? Individual and family access to savings and checking accounts
by Marieka Klawitter and Diana Fletschner
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-16 (139 KB PDF)

• Abstract: In this paper, we use data on married and unmarried different-sex couples from the U.S. 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances to build on the empirical literature about access to mainstream financial services. We find that, compared to families with higher incomes, low income families are much less likely to have bank accounts and that, even within families with bank accounts, not all individuals have accounts. This is important since individuals without accounts may lack access to financial services and credit building, may be at a financial disadvantage within their family, and may be at financial risk if their partners die or their partnerships end. Education, employment, race, marital status, and women?s health are also important predictors of individual as well as family ownership of bank accounts. Our results suggest that there are no important differences in the chances of having accounts for male and female partners, but that family and individual characteristics affect the types of accounts families hold and whether or not money is held jointly.

Rural Women's Access to Credit: Market Imperfections and Intrahousehold Dynamics
by Diana Fletschner
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-14 (124 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Using husbands? and wives? individual perceptions of their access to credit in rural Paraguay, this paper contributes to the empirical literature on credit rationing in three ways. First, by determining individual-specific credit rationing status, it improves over most studies that carry out the analysis at the household level. Second, it identifies gender-specific factors that constrain individuals? access to credit. Finally, it evaluates the extent to which women?s limitations in the financial market are ameliorated by their husbands. The most significant findings of the paper are that i) compared to men, women are more likely to be non-price rationed; ii) women?s rationing status responds to a different set of factors than men?s; and, iii) husbands may choose not to intermediate capital to their wives even when they are able to do so. Results from this exercise provide empirically sound support for the assumptions underlying women-targeted credit programs and indicate that studies carried out at the household level may present an incomplete and biased assessment of who is likely to be constrained, why they are constrained, and what is the extent of the constraints.

Constructing and Reconstructing Gender: Reference Group Effects and Women's Demand for Entrepreneurial Capital
by Diana Fletschner and Michael C. Carter
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-13 (130 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Women's acquisition of entrepreneurial capital may be restricted by demand side identity constraints as women who pursue non-traditional entrepreneurial livelihoods may stand at odds with activity-regulating social norms. By explicitly incorporating social norms into a model of women?s decision-making, this paper provides an analytical framework that helps understand the social factors that limit women?s demand for capital. The model shows that because of these social effects, a credit program that relaxes supply constraints may reconstruct gender norms and have a social multiplier effect, shifting an entire group or community to a higher-income equilibrium. Using a social effects econometric framework, the paper then confirms the existence of reference group effects on women?s demand for entrepreneurial capital in rural Paraguay. Identification of these as endogenous social effects relies on the separate measurement of each woman?s social reference group, allowing the use of village-level fixed effects to sweep away confounding contextual influences. Results are robust to the use of a restricted reference group comprised solely of ?inherited? family members, and analysis of demand by male partners reveals that the social effect is gendered and hence likely to reflect social norm effects rather than endogenous social learning or exogenous social effects.

Can Institutional Features of Hospitals Help Explain Nursing Shortages?
by Marsha G. Goldfarb, Robert S. Goldfarb, and Mark C. Long
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-12 (312 KB PDF)

• Abstract: This paper contributes to the economics literature on nursing market shortages by developing a model that can explain two distinct kinds of nursing shortages: economic shortages, involving continuing unfilled, budgeted positions, and "noneconomic" professional standards shortages. Our model posits the existence of both "premier" and "funds-constrained" hospitals within a specific labor market, and specifies the budgeting process at funds-constrained hospitals. "Premier" hospitals set efficiency wages to lower nursing turnover. Funds-constrained hospitals typically pay lower wages and therefore face residual nurse supply curves. Limited budgets and residual supply curves can produce both economic and professional standards shortages. Our explanation is consistent with several stylized facts about nursing markets, and generates the interesting prediction that expansion of a funds-constrained hospital's budget can reduce the professional standards nursing shortage while increasing unfilled, budgeted positions.

Intertemporal Choice and Development Policy: Cross Country Evidence on Time Inconsistent Discount Rates
by C. Leigh Anderson and Mary Kay Gugerty
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-11 (188 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Using original data from Vietnam and Russia, we find that individual's discount rates change over time, replicating earlier results from the United States and Israel. We find that commonly held beliefs about gender differences do not hold, and that agricultural populations have higher discount rates, but that they vary less over time than their urban counterparts. We argue that these behaviors have important implications for the design of savings and credit programs, and that they are more likely to influence resource allocation in developing countries because there are fewer formal institutions and competitive markets to temper their effects.

Outside Funding and the Dynamics of Participation in Community Associations
by Mary Kay Gugerty and Michael Kremer
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-10 (292 KB PDF)

• Abstract: The poor and disadvantaged are widely seen as having weak organizations and low rates of participation in community associations, impeding their political representation and economic advancement. A number of policy initiatives aim to build participation and organizational strength among the disadvantaged by funding local community associations. Taking advantage of random assignment in a program which provided support to women's community associations in Kenya, we find little evidence that outside funding expanded organizational strength but substantial evidence that funding changed group membership and leadership. The program led younger women, more educated women, and women employed in the formal sector to enter the groups. Men, educated women, and new entrants moved into leadership positions, and government officials increased efforts to build vertical links to the groups. The rate at which members left groups due to conflicts doubled and exit rates among older women, the most socially marginalized demographic group, increased by two-thirds. A dynamic model based on the findings may help explain the relative weakness of organizations of the disadvantaged and low civic participation among the disadvantaged.

The Impact of Child Support Enforcement Policy on Nonmarital Childbearing
by Robert D. Plotnick, Irwin Garfinkel, Sara McLanahan, Inhoe Ku
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-09 (81 KB PDF)

• Abstract: A simple analysis of economic incentives implies that stricter child support enforcement will tend to reduce nonmarital childbearing by raising the costs of fatherhood for unmarried men. We investigate this hypothesis with a sample of women from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to which we add information on state child support enforcement. We examine childbearing behavior between the ages of 15 and 44 before marriage and during periods of non-marriage following divorce or widowhood. The estimates indicate that women living in states with more effective child support enforcement are less likely to bear children when unmarried, especially if they are young, never-married, or black. The findings suggest that policies that shift more costs of nonmarital childbearing to men may reduce nonmarital childbearing.

College Quality and Early Adult Outcomes
by Mark C. Long
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-07 (215 KB PDF)

• Abstract: This paper estimates the effects of various college qualities on several early adult outcomes, using panel data from the National Education Longitudinal Study. I compare the results using ordinary least squares with three alternative methods of estimation, including instrumental variables, and the methods used by Dale and Krueger (2002) and Black and Smith (2004). I find that college quality does have positive significant effects on most outcomes studied using OLS. While there is some evidence of positive selection bias in the OLS results, the alternative methods rarely produce findings that are significantly different from the OLS estimates. Furthermore, alternative methods have their own limitations, which are discussed. Across methods of estimation, there is solid evidence of positive effects of college quality on college graduation and household income, and weaker evidence of effects on hourly wages.

Secondary School Characteristics and Early Adult Outcomes
by Mark C. Long
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-06 (285 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, I measure the effects of 72 secondary school qualities on 41 outcomes, including students' test scores, educational attainment, labor market outcomes, family formation, and other behaviors. While several prior studies have found insignificant effects, I show that many school qualities, including both resources and policies, have significant effects on more outcomes than one would expect by chance. This paper provides insight into the types of school reforms that are likely to produce positive effects on students. I find that schools that promote discipline, academic rigor, and educational attainment produce consistently positive results.

To Move or Not to Move: Relationships to Place and Relocation in HOPE VI
by Rachel Garshick Kleit and Lynne C. Manzo
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-05 (375 KB PDF)

• Abstract: As the HOPE VI program redevelops public housing, residents must relocate. Little is known about how residents might make the choice to stay or go, if given one. Survey interviews with 200 residents of Seattleâ??s High Point HOPE VI project provide the data to address four questions about HOPE VI moves. First, what factors predict residentsâ?? initial choice to stay on-site during redevelopment or move permanently away? Second, how does the initial choice predict actual move behavior? Third, what is the role of place attachment and place dependence on resident relocation choices? Fourth, what is the role of other trade-offs in decision-making? Findings suggest that public housing residents' family situations and place dependent considerations shape initial relocation preferences, while their family situations may be the more important influence on their actual move. Implications for the HOPE VI program are discussed.

Bounded Rationality and Preference Variability Along the Policy Chain in Vietnam
by C. Leigh Anderson, Alison Cullen and Kostas Stamoulis
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-04 (397 KB PDF)

• Abstract: This paper explores two questions: first, is bounded rationality demonstrated in populations outside the laboratory experiments of the U.S and Europe? Second, are there systematic differences in decision making procedures between those who regularly allocate public resources, and those who are more frequently the intended recipients of these policy decisions? To test for differences we sample across individuals in Vietnam who vary by the frequency and responsibility they have over public resource allocation decisions. Our findings indicate that within both groups, individuals are more likely to satisfice than maximize, and that there are significant differences between policy makers and program recipients.

Understanding the supply response of local public goods to environmental service payments
by C. Leigh Anderson
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-03 (179 KB PDF)

• Abstract: Many environmental services, such as agricultural biodiversity and water quality, can be considered local public goods, whereby providers receive private consumption benefits from the service they produce. In these cases, the appropriate model is one that recognizes the decision-maker as both a producer and consumer. This paper develops a simple household model to look at the supply response to payments for environmental services (PES). In contrast to the traditional results of a weak or negative supply response for food crops, the results for environmental services suggest that under most conditions their quantity supplied and quantity demanded will rise in response to a price increase. Experimental evidence, however, suggests that predicting supply requires going beyond traditional assumptions of rational maximization. For the case of local public goods, other considerations include how individuals make decisions under uncertainty, the importance of fairness, and how individuals behave as part of the collective.

The Effect of Environmental Sources of Crop Loss on Farmers' Willingness to Pay in Chiapas, Mexico
by C. Leigh Anderson, Leslie Lipper, Mauricio Bellon
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-02 (300 KB PDF)

• Abstract: New technologies such as seed varieties are usually designed assuming that a representative consumer or target recipient will respond as though they have optimized a utility function conditioned by the statistical probabilities of certain events occurring. However, there is a substantial literature that challenges this expected utility model, and that acknowledges individual decision making is based on subjective risk perceptions rather than statistical probabilities. In this paper we seek understanding of how patterns in how different qualitative and quantitative dimensions of risky outcomes affect risk perceptions. Our focus is on farmers in Chiapas, Mexico, and their willingness to pay (WTP) for a seed variety that reduces the frequency of maize crop yield loss. Our results suggest that the technology with which a loss reduction is delivered is less important than the source of the loss. WTP is greatest to reduce catastrophic loss from drought and chronic loss from pests. Socio-demographic variables are better predictors of WTP for creoles than for improved varieties. Past losses, which can be obtained through survey and secondary records, are better predictors of WTP for hybrids that reduce catastrophic risk. At least from the farmer viewpoint, this may usefully inform crop breeding priorities.

Network Management Strategies
by Joaquín Herranz, Jr.
Evans School Working Paper No. 2006-01 (359 KB PDF)

• Abstract: This article extends network management scholarship by integrating sectoral differences within a proposed theoretical framework encompassing extant conceptions of network management. Even as the emergent field of network management scholarship advances, current research tends to generalize network management approaches based on assumptions that organizations behavior similarly within a network regardless of whether the organizations are governmental, nonprofit, or commercial. Consequently, existing research does not fully account for whether sectoral differences have implications for network management. This article provides evidence that sectoral differences and composition within a network matter because the differences provide strategic opportunities and constraints for public managers involved in coordinating multi-sector networks. This article makes several contributions to network management scholarship. First, this article provides a framework that reviews and situates current conceptions about network coordination within a passive-to-active continuum of managerial approaches. Sectoral differences are situated and integrated within this framework. Second, this article provides an empirically-based investigation of a quasi-natural experiment that examines sectoral differences in multi-sectoral workforce development networks in Boston. The article's findings suggest that integrating sectoral orientations within a passive-to-active network managerial continuum may help clarify and categorize the strategic options and trade-offs that public managers may consider in coordinating multi-sectoral networks.