Social ExperimentationJerry A. Hausman, David A. Wise University of Chicago Press, 2007 M12 1 - 300 pages Since 1970 the United States government has spent over half a billion dollars on social experiments intended to assess the effect of potential tax policies, health insurance plans, housing subsidies, and other programs. Was it worth it? Was anything learned from these experiments that could not have been learned by other, and cheaper, means? Could the experiments have been better designed or analyzed? These are some of the questions addressed by the contributors to this volume, the result of a conference on social experimentation sponsored in 1981 by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The first section of the book looks at four types of experiments and what each accomplished. Frank P. Stafford examines the negative income tax experiments, Dennis J. Aigner considers the experiments with electricity pricing based on time of use, Harvey S. Rosen evaluates housing allowance experiments, and Jeffrey E. Harris reports on health experiments. In the second section, addressing experimental design and analysis, Jerry A. Hausman and David A. Wise highlight the absence of random selection of participants in social experiments, Frederick Mosteller and Milton C. Weinstein look specifically at the design of medical experiments, and Ernst W. Stromsdorfer examines the effects of experiments on policy. Each chapter is followed by the commentary of one or more distinguished economists. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 33
Page 11
... projects , the first of which began in 1975 in Vermont . The main goal of this program of experimentation was to determine whether TOU pricing would produce sufficient alterations in the load curves of residential customers to justify ...
... projects , the first of which began in 1975 in Vermont . The main goal of this program of experimentation was to determine whether TOU pricing would produce sufficient alterations in the load curves of residential customers to justify ...
Page 12
... projects are of highly variable quality from the standpoint of being able to make valid statistical infer- ences from them . Even some of the more recently established projects are of limited value for the purpose of estimating ...
... projects are of highly variable quality from the standpoint of being able to make valid statistical infer- ences from them . Even some of the more recently established projects are of limited value for the purpose of estimating ...
Page 13
... Projects State Status Results / Potential Arizona ongoing Arkansas completed California ( LADWP ) completed ... projects can be classified into two groups on the basis of when they were begun , since only midway into the program did the ...
... Projects State Status Results / Potential Arizona ongoing Arkansas completed California ( LADWP ) completed ... projects can be classified into two groups on the basis of when they were begun , since only midway into the program did the ...
Page 14
... projects that do not possess price variation but are otherwise well de- signed are pertinent , they are also discussed . While the notion of price elasticity ( own price , cross price , compen- sated , etc. ) is certainly well ...
... projects that do not possess price variation but are otherwise well de- signed are pertinent , they are also discussed . While the notion of price elasticity ( own price , cross price , compen- sated , etc. ) is certainly well ...
Page 19
... project , which will be discussed shortly . Similarly , Lau and Lillard ( 1979 ) offer a substantial methodological improvement over Atkinson's work — while keeping to his model in most other respects by specifying a rich " pooling ...
... project , which will be discussed shortly . Similarly , Lau and Lillard ( 1979 ) offer a substantial methodological improvement over Atkinson's work — while keeping to his model in most other respects by specifying a rich " pooling ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
2 Housing Behavior and the Experimental HousingAllowance Program What Have We Learned? | 55 |
3 IncomeMaintenance Policy and Work Effort Learning from Experiments and LaborMarket Studies | 95 |
4 Macroexperiments versus Microexperiments for Health Policy | 145 |
5 Technical Problems in Social Experimentation Cost versus Ease of Analysis | 187 |
6 Toward Evaluating the CostEffectiveness of Medical and Social Experiments | 221 |
7 The Use of Information in the Policy Process Are SocialPolicy Experiments Worthwhile? | 251 |
8 Social Science Analysis and the Formulation of Public Policy Illustrations of What the President Knows and How He Comes to Know It | 257 |
List of Contributors | 283 |
Author Index | 285 |
Subject Index | 288 |
Common terms and phrases
Aigner analysis ANOVA assess assumptions attrition behavior benefits Broad Peak budget changes cholesterol clinical trials control group cost-effectiveness costs decision demand experiment discussion econometric economic efficacy EHAP elasticity estimates electricity eligible endogenous equation evaluation example exogenous experimental data experimental design experimental effect function Hausman and Wise Hawthorne effects hedonic households housing allowances housing services hypertension impact important incentive income maintenance increase individual Institute intervention issues Journal labor supply labor-market likelihood function macroexperimentation macroexperiments measure ment Mosteller MRFIT negative income tax nonexperimental observations off-peak outcomes paper parameters payments peak percent perimental period policy makers population potential pre-experimental predict price elasticity problems procedure projects question random residential response Rosen selection selectivity bias social experiments specific statistical Stromsdorfer studies subjects supply experiment time-of-day tion TOU pricing TOU rates treatment assignment treatment effect treatment groups U.S. Congress unemployment utility variables variation wage welfare
Popular passages
Page 188 - Five-year findings of the hypertension detection and follow-up program. I. Reduction in mortality of persons with high blood pressure, including mild hypertension.
Page 192 - Professor of Political Economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and research associate. National Bureau of Economic Research.
Page 253 - CHALMERS. 1966. The present status of shunts for portal hypertension in cirrhosis.
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Page 226 - This research was supported in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to the Center for the Analysis of Health Practices and by National Science Foundation grant SES-75-15702.
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