Systematic Thinking for Social Action

by Alice M. Rivlin

Overview

"How can we identify who benefits from government programs aimed at solving our social problem and who pays for them? With so many problems, how can we allocate scarce funds to promote the maximum well-being of our citizens?

In this book, originally presented as the third series of H. Rowan Gaither Lectures in Systems Science at the University of California (Berkeley). Alice M. Rivlin examines the contributions that systematic analysis has made to decisionmaking in the government's "social action" programs—education, health, manpower training, and income maintenance. Drawing on her own experience in government, Mrs. Rivlin indicates where the analysts have been helpful in finding solutions and where—because of inadequate data or methods—they have been no help at all.

Mrs. Rivlin concludes by urging the widespread implementation of social experimentation and acceptability by the federal government. The first in such a way as to permit valid conclusions about their effectiveness; the second would encourage the adoption of better ways of delivering services by making those who administer programs responsive to their clients. Underlying both is the requirement from comprehensive, reliable performance measures.

"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815774778
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/01/1971
Series:	H. Rowan Gaither Lectures in Systems Science
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	164
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

"Alice M. Rivlin is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and visiting professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. She has been director of both the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, and has served as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Among her previous books is Beyond the Dot.coms: The Economic Promise of the Internet (Brookings, 2001), written with Robert Litan."

Table of Contents

Foreword Donna Sbalala vii

Preface to the New Edition xi

1 Introduction 1

PPBS and Common Sense 3

A Word about PPBS in HEW 5

Four Propositions 6

2 Who Wins and Who Loses? 8

What Are the Problems? 8

Income Maintenance 13

The "Tax Model" 28

Higher Education 29

3 What Does the Most Good? 38

Identifying the Objectives 38

Comparing the Benefits: Cancer Cure versus Reading 42

Weakness of Benefit-Cost Analysis 46

When Benefit-Cost Analysis Is Useful 50

4 Producing Effective Services: What Do We Know? 53

Why Do We Care? 54

Learning from the System 58

Learning from Federal Programs 66

5 Can We Find Out What Works? 72

Random Innovation 73

Systematic Experimentation 76

The Pros and Cons of an Experimental Strategy 91

6 Accountability: What Does It Mean? 102

Decentralization 104

Community Control 111

The Market Model 114

Where Do We Go from Here? 120

Notes 125

Index 137