Social Impacts Measurement in Government and Academia

1
Social Impacts Measurement in Government and
Academia

• Daniel Fujiwara
• d.f.fujiwara_at_lse.ac.uk
• Cabinet Office London School of Economics

2
I. Social impacts in public policy

• Economists in government have a long tradition of
  measuring social impact Cost-Benefit Analysis
  (CBA).

3
The Green Book (1)

• CBA enters at the Appraisal stage
• Appraise policy interventions in terms of their
  social costs and benefits.
• Further supported through the Social Value Act
  (2012)
• ROAMEF cycle

4
The Green Book (2)

• Supplementary Green Book guidance provides
  guidelines on how to value social impacts

5
The Magenta Book

• Assessing whether the policy had a causal
  effect/impact

6
II. Social impacts research (1)

• Valuation and Evaluation (causality) are key to
  understanding social impacts.
• Valuation
• Theory to find the monetary equivalent of the
  change in welfare or wellbeing associated with
  experiencing or consuming the good.
• We could look at peoples preferences or their
  wellbeing
• Wellbeing valuation recent research is looking
  at assessing value in terms of changes in
  subjective wellbeing (Fujiwara Campbell, 2011)
  with lots of potential for housing issues.

7
Social impacts research (2)

• Evaluation (causality)
• Evaluation scale (Dolan Fujiwara
  (2012) BIS technical report)
• Theory Identifying
• and measuring the
• counterfactual
• Many public sector
• organisations moving
• to the Maryland
• Evaluation scale.
• This scale ranks how
• well counterfactuals have
• been measured in the
• analysis.

Level Design Statistical method
5 Randomised trials Evaluations with well implemented random assignment of treatment to subjects in treatment and control groups.
4 Quasi- Experiments Evaluations that use a naturally occurring event (that makes the treatment assignment as good as random)
3 Matching techniques Regression analysis Non-experimental evaluations where treatment and comparison groups are matched on observable characteristics
2 Simple comparisons Studies with a treated and comparison group, but with no attempt made to control for differences among the groups.
1 Pre- and post analysis Studies where no comparison group is used. Outcomes are measured pre and post-treatment.
8
III. Housing and social impact

• Example Attaching values to aspects of housing
  through
• the Wellbeing Valuation approach
• Preliminary findings (not for citation)