Policy Analysis

Policy analysis or policy studies is a broad field seeking to understand and improve policy.

Description

This field deals with public policy and evaluation of it. Some portions of the field are descriptive. Other portions apply public choice policy and blend with institutional design academia.

Closely related to the professional field of program evaluation.

Reading Notes

For anything relating to governmental federalization, centralization, or decentralization, see institutional design.

For anything relating to private markets, see regulatory economics. (Yes, arguably welfare is a policy affecting the labor market, but this organization is convenient.)

For anything relating to nation building, see international development.

Criminal Justice

• Offender Assessment: General Issues and Considerations, James Bonta, 2000

• Forecasting Methods in Crime and Justice, Richard Berk, 2008

• Marvin Frankel's Mistakes and the Need to Rethink Federal Sentencing, Lynn Adelman and Jon Deitrich, 2008

• Forecasting murder within a population of probationers and parolees: a high stakes application of statistical learning; Richard Berk, Lawrence Sherman, Geoffrey Barnes, Ellen Kurtz and Lindsay Ahlman; 2009

• Evaluating the Predictive Validity of the COMPAS Risk and Needs Assessment System; Tim Brennan, William Dieterich, Beate Ehret; 2009

• Improving the Guidelines Through Critical Evaluation: An Important New Role for District Courts, Lynn Adelman and Jon Deitrich, 2009

• What the Sentencing Commission Ought to Be Doing: Reducing Mass Incarceration, Lynn Adelman, 2013

• Detecting Grouped Local Average Treatment Effects and Selecting True Instruments With an Application to Estimating the Effect of Prison on Recidivism; Nicolas Apfel, Helmut Farbmacher, Rebecca Groh, Martin Huber, and Henrika Langen; 2023

Organized Crime

• Increasing intergovernmental coordination to fight crime: evidence from Mexico, Marco Alcocer, 2024

• Criminal fragmentation in Mexico, Jane Esberg, 2026

Welfare

• Multiple Program Use in a Dynamic Context: Data from the SIPP, Rebecca M. Blank and Patricia Ruggles, 1992

• Welfare Program Reentry among Postreform Leavers; Donald Bruce, Karie Barbour, and Angela Thacker; 2004

• Have the 1996 Welfare Reforms and Expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit Eliminated the Need for a Basic Income Guarantee in the US?, James B. Bryan, 2005

• Measuring State Welfare Policy Changes: Why Don’t They Explain Caseload and Employment Outcomes?; Brian Cadena, Sheldon Danziger, and Kristin Seefeldt; 2006

• Why is there a Spike in the Job Finding Rate at Benefit Exhaustion?, Jan Boone and Jan C. van Ours, 2009

• Why Do Larger Public Housing Agencies Have Longer Wait Times? Understanding Applicant Duration on the Waitlist, Marika Melelani Butler, 2010

• Public and Subsidized Housing as a Platform for Becoming a United States Citizen; John I. Carruthers, Natasha T. Duncan, and Brigitte S. Waldorf; 2013

• The Impact of State Paid Leave Laws on Firms and Establishments: Evidence from the First Three States; Kristin F. Butcher, Deniz Civril, and Sari Pekkala Kerr; 2024

• The Public Charge Rule and Program Participation among U.S. Citizens; Kristin F. Butcher, Luojia Hu, and Ryan Perry; 2024

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