2008 Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference
Advancing Social Policy-Making Through Benefit-Cost Analysis:
Challenges and Opportunities
June 24-25, Washington, D.C.
This national policy forum is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and will:
- Examine the role of benefit-cost analysis in social policy-making
- Highlight the new opportunities presented by recent uses of benefit-cost analysis in social arenas
We will also aim to develop strategies for making Benefit Cost Analysis more practical, consistent, and implementable, within the social policy fields.
We have invited leading scholars, practitioners, lawyers, and policy-makers to share ideas about the implementation of benefit-cost analysis techniques and procedures. We also hope conference participants will offer advice on how improve the quality of social benefit-cost analysis and increase the usage of it in regard to social programs at all levels of government.
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(Registration for this conference requires a registration code. If you have not received your registration code, please contact evansors@u.washington.edu.)
Conference Schedule and Highlights
Day 1: Tuesday, June 24 – 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
The conference will present the following panels, highlighting recent successes of integration between benefit-cost analysis and social policy-making with and emphasis on identifying transferable lessons.
- The Use of Evidence-Based Research on Children’s Outcomes to Promote Economic Competitiveness: The Case of the Partnership for America's Economic Success will describe how partnership-supported research about the rates of return for specific child development strategies has been used to establish new ways to justify investments in children.
- Panel Chair: Robert Dugger, managing partner of Tudor Investment Corp. who was involved in the creation of the Partnership for America's Economic Success
- Panelists to be announced
- Lessons from Government Experience with Benefit-Cost Analysis: USA and the EU will discuss the extent to which benefit-cost analysis improves decision-making, and will explore how such use can be fashioned to have greater impact with respect to the analysis of federal social programs
- Panel Chair: John Graham, dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy
- Panelists: John Morrall of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Jonathan Wiener of Duke University, and Katherine Swartz of Harvard University
- Using Benefit-Cost Analysis in the State Legislature: Case Study of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) will have senior staff members of the Washington State Senate examining whether or not benefit-cost analysis effectively contributes to state level decision-making.
- Panel Chair: Steve Aos, assistant director of WSIPP
- Panelists: Richard Ramsey of the Washington State Senate Ways and Means Committee
- Integrated Administrative Data Systems: Generating Benefits and Costs in Real Time Over Time will examine how integrated administrative data enables measurement of investments and returns across agency boundaries, leading to a transformation in social policy.
- Panel Chair: Dennis Culhane, professor of social welfare policy and psychology and director of the Cartogrpahic Modeling Lab at the University of Pennsylvania who works with Philadelphia Kids Integrated Data System Project
- Panelists: Richard Burgess of Michigan State University, Walter Bailey of the South Carolina Office of Research and Statistics, Manuel Morena of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, Martha Moorehouse of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and John Fantuzzo of the University of Pennsylvania
Day 2: Wednesday, June 25 – 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The second day of the conference will focus on identifying research strategies that will make Benefit-Cost Analysis more practical and useable in future social policy-making.
- Key Factors Enabling Rigorous Research to Influence Policy: Lessons from Welfare, Education, and Other Areas will discuss concrete examples in which rigorous research findings – including benefit-cost results – have had a meaningful impact on policy decisions, and instances when they did not. The goal is to identify key ingredients that make for successful impact.
- Panel Chair: Jon Baron, executive director of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy
- Panelists: Robert Shea of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution, and Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins University
- Missing Shadow Prices from Benefit-Cost Analyses of Social Programs will examine how analysis of social programs can be improved by giving attention to shadow prices.
- Panel Chair: Dave Weimer, professor of public affairs and political science at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin
- Panelists: Philip Cook of Duke University, Robert Haveman of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, and Kerry Smith of Arizona State University
- Issues in the Development of Principles and Standards for Conducting Social Benefit-Cost Analysis will address areas and process for development, historical experience, templates, and values for analysis in developing principles and standards in the field of benefit-cost analysis.
- Panel Chair: Scott Farrow, professor and chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County
- Panelists: Arnold Harberger of the University of California, Los Angeles, Lynn Karoly of the RAND Corporation, Lester Lave Carnegie Mellon University, and David Weimer of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin
- End of Conference Luncheon
- Keynote Speaker: John Fanton, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Find out more about the Benefit-Cost Analysis Center and Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis.
