Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Emergence of Cost-Benefit Analysis in US Policymaking

这个项目调查了从19世纪末到20世纪下半叶，美国良好政府的理想和成本效益分析的使用演变的过程。理性政府管理的理想在历史上是多变的。在1870年以前，国家政府基本上是不发达的，而地方政府则被政治机器掌控。在接下来的一个世纪里，对道德正直和官僚廉洁的要求让位于对效力和效率的要求，这最终导致了一种优化制度，并采用成本效益分析作为行政决策的核心。本项目调查了这段历史，并通过两个案例研究来检验其论点。这项研究的结果将为利用现代合理化技术来处理当前问题的努力提供信息和启发。本项目使用档案研究、文本分析和访谈来解释成本效益分析及其随之而来的假设被美国政府采用的历史过程。第一部分，分析了国会记录、学术期刊和总统演讲等文件的文本，并采访了从20世纪60年代到现在在这一过程中活跃的历史线人。在第二部分，两个案例，即开始相似但结果不同的公共政策领域，被纵向研究和比较。第二部分的方法包括对国会记录部分的文本分析和对主要组织代表的采访。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates the processes by which ideals of good government and use of cost-benefit analysis evolved in the U.S. from the late-19th century to the second half of the 20th century. The ideal of rational government administration has been historically variable. Before 1870, the national government was largely undeveloped and local governments were in the pockets of political machines. Over the next century, calls for moral rectitude and bureaucratic integrity gave way to calls for effectiveness and efficiency, which eventually led to a regime of optimization and the adoption of cost-benefit analysis as the core of administrative decision-making. This project investigates this history and tests its argument on two case studies. The findings from this research will inform and illuminate efforts to use modern technologies of rationalization to deal with current problems.This project uses archival research, text analysis, and interviews to explain the historical processes by which cost-benefit analysis and its attendant assumptions came to be adopted by government in the U.S. For the first part, the text of documents such as the Congressional record, scholarly journals and presidential speeches is analyzed, plus historical informants active in this process from the 1960s to the present are interviewed. In the second part, two cases, areas of public policy that began similarly but had divergent outcomes, are examined longitudinally and compared. The method for the second part involves text analysis of portions of the Congressional record and interviews of representatives of key organizations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.