CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS RELATED TO THE POLICY AND PROGRAM EVALUATION

Abstract

The subject of this article is the set of methodological and conceptual aspects related to the evaluation of
social policies and programs. The design of a evaluation research as well as the objective procedures to
evaluate the results from a social policy or program are presented. Specifically a set of criteria to evaluate
a social policy are presented: the knowledge about the policy/program, the knowledge about its goals,
the policy design (if it is an experimental design or not) and the need to have a broad data set about
the information related to the subjects involved and not involved in the policy/program. Another set of
important variables that should be included in the data set are the characteristics of the subjects that
affect the participation in the policy/program but do not affect the results. Another aspect presented in
the article is the fact that the groups (involved and not by the policy/program) should be comparable. It
is necessary to choose a comparable control group to avoid bias. Several techniques to avoid or to lead with bias due to the group (control and treatment) selection are presented: the technique of difference
of difference, the propensity score matching and the use of instrumental variables.