Evaluating Public Programs: The Impact of General Revenue Sharing on Municipal Government (Princeton Legacy Library) - Hardcover

Larkey, Patrick D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691076014 ISBN 13: 9780691076010

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1979

Synopsis

For effective program evaluation, it is necessary to specify a counterfactual state, i.e., what would have happened without the program. Conventional approaches to program evaluation, preoccupied with technical and value issues, fail to address directly the need for counterfactual arguments. They also fail to recognize the indispensable role of positive theories of technical and behavioral processes in making these arguments. In order to understand the impact of the General Revenue Sharing (GRS) program on the fiscal behavior of municipal governments, Patrick Larkey develops and demonstrates an unconventional approach to program evaluation that overcomes these failures.

Drawing on the positive theories of budgetary decisionmaking processes as well as longitudinal revenue and expenditure data from primary sources, the author specifies, estimates, and tests four "bureaucratic process" models for each of five city governments receiving GRS funds. Using these models to generate complex, counterfactual hypotheses, he then compares the counterfactual patterns with observed patterns to understand the fiscal effects of GRS.

Originally published in 1979.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0691076014
• ISBN 13: 9780691076010
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 284