Urban Institute

About: Urban Institute is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Medicaid & Population. The organization has 927 authors who have published 2330 publications receiving 86426 citations.

What does cost-benefit analysis add to decision making? Evidence from the criminal justice literature

Abstract: This paper asks whether undertaking a cost-benefit analysis provides additional information to policy makers as compared to an analysis solely of the effect of an intervention. A literature review identified 106 evaluations of criminal justice interventions that reported both an effect size and measures of net benefit. Data on net benefit and effect size were extracted from these studies. We found that effect size is only weakly related to net benefits. The rank order of net benefits and effect size are minimally correlated. Furthermore, we found that the two analytic methods would yield opposing policy recommendations for more than one in four interventions. These bi-variate findings are supported by the results of multivariate models. However, further research is needed to verify the accuracy of the standard errors on net benefit estimates, so these models must be interpreted with caution.

Long-term care financing reform: lessons from the u.s. and abroad

Abstract: As part of health care reform, Congress is considering the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. The measure would mark the most significant change since 1965 in the way the U.S. finances long-term care, the personal assistance delivered both at home and in nursing facilities to the frail elderly and other adults with disabilities. As policymakers consider the CLASS Act, they may be able to learn from past experiments in the U.S. as well as from the experiences of other major industrialized countries, most of which have migrated to universal, government-run financing systems. Although those models vary markedly in their specifics, they appear to be both broadly popular and somewhat more costly than expected. By contrast, the CLASS Act is a voluntary system that attempts to meld public insurance with private long-term care coverage and Medicaid.

The State Role in Teacher Professional Development and Education Throughout Teachers' Careers

Abstract: Professional development and teacher education policies have the potential to greatly affect teachers’ abilities to teach and, as a result, students’ abilities to learn. States can play varied roles in the provision of teacher education and professional development. This policy brief summarizes states’ policy approaches to teacher professional development and education throughout teachers’ careers. It explores what states are currently doing in the realms of pre-service education, induction and mentoring, ongoing professional development, and teacher evaluation, as well as the existing evidence regarding the effectiveness of such policies. We find that states play disparate roles in the provision of teacher education and professional development that fall along the regulatory spectrum from highly prescriptive to rather laissez-faire. Research on the effects of such policies is still in the early stages, and more attention is needed to determine the effectiveness of states’ professional development policies.