TY  - JOUR
AU  - Dehejia,Rajeev
TI  - Was There a Riverside Miracle? A Framework for Evaluating Multi-Site Programs
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7844
PY  - 2000
Y2  - August 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7844
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7844.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Rajeev H. Dehejia
Wagner School of Public Policy
New York University
295 Lafayette Street, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212-998-7435
E-Mail: rajeev@dehejia.net
AB  - This paper uses data from the Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) initiative to discuss the evaluation of programs that are implemented at multiple sites. Two frequently used methods are to pool the data or to use fixed effects (an extreme version of which estimates separate models for each site). The former approach, however, ignores site effects. Though the latter estimates site effects, it lacks a framework for predicting the impact in subsequent implementations of the program (e.g., will a new implementation resemble Riverside or Alameda?). I develop a model for earnings that lies between these two extremes. For the GAIN data, I show that most of the differences across sites are due to differences in the composition of participants. I show also that uncertainty regarding predicting site effects is important; when the predictive uncertainty is ignored, the treatment impact for the Riverside sites is significant, but when we consider predictive uncertainty, the impact for the Riverside sites is insignificant. Finally, I demonstrate that the model is able to extrapolate site effects with reasonable accuracy, when the site for which the prediction is being made does not differ substantially from the sites already observed. For example, the San Diego treatment effects could have been predicted based on observable site characteristics, but the Riverside effects are consistently underestimated.
ER  -