Abstract This paper reports the results of a telephone survey of state-level officials as to the influence of evaluations of three state welfare innovations: California's GAIN, New York's CAP, and Florida's Project Independence. The three experiments were known to those interviewed, yet they did...

This paper uses meta-analysis to investigate whether random assignment (or experimental) evaluations of voluntary government-funded training programs for the disadvantaged have produced different conclusions than nonexperimental evaluations. Information includes several hundred estimates from 31...

A major reason the quality of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) varies widely is inconsistent use of the social discount rate (SDR). This article offers guidance about the choice of the SDR. Namely, we recommend the following procedures: If the project is intragenerational (does not have effects...

This paper is an exploratory attempt to view the role that social experiments in general, and the income maintenance experiments and work|welfare demonstrations in particular, have played in the policy process through the lens provided by the knowledge utilization literature. In addition to...

Since 1968 more than thirty-five social policy experiments have been conducted in the United States. During this period through 1976 these experiments were generally long-term, large-scale tests of major new programs; thereafter, experiments became markedly more modest in scope. Although...