This research collection illustrates the wide range of methodologies and methods available for the evaluation of public programs. All these methods address the benefits of the programs and most compare the benefits to costs, but the types of benefits and their measures vary greatly across the studies and across the different types of public programs. The key articles presented here explore these different approaches and offer many examples of actual evaluations of public programs across different public policy settings.

Professor Link and Professor Scott have provided an authoritative original introduction, which elucidates this diversity of approaches and settings and challenges scholars to contemplate an evaluation in terms of its theoretical foundation.