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Policy & Program Evaluation terms
What works: audits, scoring, evaluations and evidence-based policy.
Administrative data Records collected by government agencies for operational purposes, later reused for research, statistics, or evaluation. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) Comparing a policy or project's monetized benefits against its costs to judge whether it is worth doing. Impact evaluation Measuring a program's causal effect on outcomes by comparing what happened to a credible counterfactual. Logic model A diagram mapping how a program's resources and activities are expected to lead to short- and long-term outcomes. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) The ongoing tracking of a program's activities plus periodic assessment of whether it achieved its intended outcomes. Performance budgeting Allocating public funds based on measured program outcomes and performance targets rather than prior spending levels. Performance management in government Setting measurable goals for public agencies and tracking results against them to guide budgeting and accountability. Program evaluation Systematic assessment of whether a public or nonprofit program achieves its intended outcomes, and why. Randomized controlled trial (RCT) An experiment that randomly assigns subjects to treatment and control groups to isolate a causal effect. Recidivism rate The share of people released from incarceration or supervision who reoffend or are rearrested within a set period. Record linkage Matching records that refer to the same person or entity across datasets that lack a shared unique identifier. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators The official metrics the United Nations uses to track country-level progress toward the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.