This book provides students with the step-by-step methods needed to plan and implement a cost-analysis study. Through the use of numerous examples drawn from the applied literature, the authors demonstrate the four major techniques of cost analysis: cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit, cost-utility, and cost-feasibility.
Industry Reviews
"In order to improve our educational systems, we need to increase our understanding of economic evaluation. This text provides the tools for both practitioners and researchers to achieve this end. This is unequivocally the best text in the field." -- Dan Jorgensen "This is a practical and clear text that practitioners can use. The authors make a strong case for the importance of economic evaluations and then provide coherent, sequential, and precise steps for conducting economic evaluations. This is a must-use for any policy methods class." -- Charol Shakeshaft "Clear and effective representation of a valuable approach to cost analysis offered by authorities in the field." -- Charles David Crumpton This text offers evaluators a rare opportunity to enhance the effectiveness and utility of their work: Policymakers need information on programs' effects and their costs if they are to make informed decisions. This text clearly teaches both the 'how' and 'why' of economic evaluation. -- Gary Skolits "Sound policymaking requires not just a knowledge of "what works", but also an understanding of whether the benefits exceed the costs. This volume presents, in a clear and accessible manner, all of the tools essential to making this determination. It's an excellent resource for policy students and policymakers alike." -- David Figlio Policymakers around the world face the challenge of how to use scarce resources to most effectively improve education. Researchers are supporting their efforts by providing increasingly good evidence on the impacts of a wide range of policy initiatives such as reducing class size, introducing new instructional technologies, and basing teacher compensation on student performance. But since these initiatives have different costs, policymakers find it difficult to use the research evidence. The third edition of Economic Evaluation in Education by Henry Levin and his colleagues provides a valuable resource to researchers who want to make evidence from impact evaluations useful to policymakers. Topics include methods for estimating the costs stemming from initiatives and strategies to compare the cost effectiveness of initiatives with similar objectives. Material new to this third edition includes an expanded description of how to estimate the dollar value of diverse outcomes of education and treatment of different kinds of uncertainty. One strength of the book is the lucid application of up-to-date economics methods to concrete challenges in estimating costs and evaluating benefits. A second is the variety of examples used to illustrate application of methods. A third is the set of discussion questions and exercises at the end of each chapter. These strengths make the book a wise choice as a text in Master's level courses on making research useful to policymakers. -- Richard J. Murnane
