PAC Policy Analysis & Evaluation 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: When conducting a multi-criteria analysis (MCA), assigning weights to criteria most directly reflects:
- Statistical confidence in the data
- The political feasibility of each option
- The relative importance of different values or objectives (Correct answer)
- The cost of data collection for each criterion
Correct answer: The relative importance of different values or objectives
Weights in MCA express how much decision-makers value each criterion relative to others, making value trade-offs explicit.
Question 2: Which term describes the unintended side effects of a policy that affect parties outside the direct target population?
- Deadweight loss
- Spillover effects (externalities) (Correct answer)
- Crowding out
- Displacement effects
Correct answer: Spillover effects (externalities)
Spillover effects, or externalities, are costs or benefits borne by third parties not directly targeted by the policy.
Question 3: In the policy cycle, 'agenda setting' refers to:
- Drafting the legislative text of a bill
- The process by which issues gain government attention (Correct answer)
- Monitoring program implementation fidelity
- Evaluating outcomes against benchmarks
Correct answer: The process by which issues gain government attention
Agenda setting is the stage where social problems become recognized as public issues worthy of government action.
Question 4: A policy analyst uses a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach. The key identifying assumption is:
- Treatment and control groups had identical pre-treatment outcomes
- Treatment and control groups would have followed parallel trends absent the intervention (Correct answer)
- No treatment group member received the control condition
- The outcome variable is normally distributed
Correct answer: Treatment and control groups would have followed parallel trends absent the intervention
DiD requires that, without the policy, both groups would have changed at the same rate (parallel trends), so any divergence after treatment is attributable to the policy.
Question 5: Which type of policy instrument relies primarily on providing or withholding financial incentives rather than mandating behavior?
- Regulation
- Information campaigns
- Economic incentives (Correct answer)
- Direct service delivery
Correct answer: Economic incentives
Economic incentives (taxes, subsidies, grants) alter behavior through financial rewards or penalties without legally requiring a specific action.
Question 6: An analyst is evaluating a workforce training program and finds high attrition among enrollees. This is MOST relevant to which evaluation question?
- Was the program cost-effective?
- Did the program achieve intended outcomes?
- Was the program implemented as designed? (Correct answer)
- Is the program theory internally consistent?
Correct answer: Was the program implemented as designed?
High attrition is an implementation fidelity issue — it indicates the program was not delivered to the full intended population as designed.
Question 7: The concept of 'satisficing' in bounded rationality models suggests that decision-makers:
- Optimize across all possible alternatives
- Choose the first option that meets a minimum acceptable threshold (Correct answer)
- Delegate decisions to technocratic experts
- Use majority-rule voting to select policies
Correct answer: Choose the first option that meets a minimum acceptable threshold
Satisficing, coined by Herbert Simon, means selecting the first sufficiently good option rather than searching for the optimal solution given cognitive and resource limits.
PAC Policy Analysis & Evaluation 3
When conducting a multi-criteria analysis (MCA), assigning weights to criteria most directly reflects: