| Session Title: Ethical Evaluation in Contexts Where Costs, Benefits and Net Value Matter |
| Multipaper Session 525 to be held in Wekiwa 4 on Friday, Nov 13, 10:55 AM to 11:40 AM |
| Sponsored by the Costs, Effectiveness, Benefits, and Economics TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Valerie J Caracelli, United States Government Accountability Office, caracelliv@gao.gov |
| Abstract: Resistance to including costs and benefits evaluations is common, yet this can be understood as an unethical response to demand for improved accountability, learning and coordination. Ethics of evaluating impacts in monetary terms and methodologies for effectively doing so are complementary issues addressed in this session. When an evaluation does not include costs and benefits this can be construed as saying that money does not matter. Excluding certain 'impactees' is like saying they do not matter. It is now painfully obvious that financial stewardship and social equity do matter, yet some questions remain. How might I evaluate costs and benefits in a way that strives for positive effects for all impactees while enabling the greater whole to develop and sustain increased financial viability? Principles and methods are illuminated with examples to show how evaluators can provide formative guidance that helps nurture economic growth while meeting social needs at lower cost. |
| Multi-evaluand Co-evaluation: The Virtually Possible Imperative |
| Ron Visscher, Western Michigan University, visscron@aquinas.edu |
| This presentation shows how evaluators can better assist policymakers in meeting their ethical responsibility for rational decision-making while simultaneously enhancing collective learning and coordination across 'impactee' networks. A generally applicable systematic approach for collecting, modeling and analyzing network-wide cost, benefit and value information is explained. The approach enables evaluators to readily synthesize value impacts between and among interdependent 'evaluands' (and other impactees). The more inherent inclusion of value impacts from across impactee networks improves evaluations and their conclusions. The resulting ability to compare and align complex interactive effects on net value creation in context improves formative guidance, enabling improved optimization. Early results are positive, yet suggest a virtual system is necessary for the approach to be cost-feasible. Transparent foresight and verification of impacts can improve harmonization of cooperation and attribution of complex effects, and may be what is needed to repair ailing socioeconomic systems in a productive and equitable way. |
| Evaluating Costs and Benefits Ethically: Avoiding the Special Pitfalls of Using Monetary Units to Measure Resources "In" and Outcomes "Out" |
| Brian Yates, American University, brian.yates@mac.com |
| Ethical problem areas in cost-inclusive evaluation include unacknowledged biases in funding, hypotheses, methodology, analyses conducted, and utilization of findings in policy formulation and decision-making. As in other evaluations that eschew costs, but much more so in those evaluations that include costs and monetary outcomes (benefits) of offering programs, funding strategies can prevent detection of anything but large effects, examination of whether "sacred cows" are cost-beneficial. Interest groups such as consumers may be excluded from the evaluation, evaluation designs may prevent examination of less costly or more cost-beneficial alternatives. Valuing program outcomes as lifetime earnings can maintain social and political prejudices in favor of genders, ethnicities, economic classes, and age groups that are paid at higher rates for the same work. Excluding volunteered and donated resources from cost evaluation can prevent programs from being replicated in areas that cannot afford to provide similar amounts of resources without pay. |