It seems like even small incentives or…recognition of performance is enough to motivate public agencies to respond. You may have heard this line before: “What’s measured is what matters.” If people know that their performance is being measured against something, even if there aren’t individual consequences…their own pay, let’s say, isn’t tied to it—we find that people are very attentive to it.”
-Carolyn Heinrich
Carolyn Heinrich is a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and the Director of their Center for Health and Social Policy. Her research focuses on social welfare policy, public management, and social-program evaluation. Prior to her appointment at the University of Texas in 2011, she was the Director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Our interview focuses on The Performance of Performance Standards (Upjohn Institute Press, 2011) co-edited by Dr. Heinrich, James Heckman, Pascall Courty, Gerald Marschke and Jeffrey Smith. It provides insights into the effects of incentives and accountability systems by studying the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), a national employment and training program that operated in the 1980s and 1990s and one of the first large scale programs with sophisticated performance standards and incentives.
Interview questions
Q1: The first lesson presented in the book is, “agencies respond to incentives.” Tell us more.
Q2: The third lesson is, “the Cream Skimming program is overstated.” What are the implications for those who lead social policy programs?
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