Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Goals and criteria for evaluating public programs -- The principles of causal inference -- The practice of causal inference -- External validity -- Experimental deigns -- Quasi-experimental designs -- Nonexperimental designs: Categorical data -- Nonexperimental designs: Continuous data -- Conclusion. Here is a practical guide to the statistical methods used to determine if public policies are achieving their intended goals. Special emphasis is placed on specifying the objectives of a given public program in order to select the most effective research design. The book provides a complete outline of the principles of evaluation research, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed with examples from the world of deadlines, budgets, and self-interest (from cover).