Bowden, Brooks
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Publication A Benefit-Cost Analysis of a Long-Term Intervention on Social and Emotional Learning in Compulsory School(2017-04-01) Klapp, Alli; Belfield, Clive R.; Bowden, Brooks; Levin, Henry M.; Shand, Robert; Zander, SabineThere is growing evidence that social and emotional skills can be taught to students in school and teaching these skills can have a positive effect on later outcomes, such as better mental health and less drug use. This paper presents a benefit-cost analysis of a longitudinal social and emotional learning intervention in Sweden, using data for 663 students participating in the evaluation. Intervention costs are compared against treatment impact on self-reported drug use. Pre-test and post-test data are available. Since follow-up data for the participants´ drug use as adults is not available, informed projections have been made. Net present monetary values are calculated for the general public and society. The results show that students in the treatment group report decreasing use of drugs over the five year long intervention, the value of which easily outweighs the intervention costs.Publication Empirical Support for Establishing Common Assumptions in Cost Research in Education(2021-07-07) Shand, Robert; Bowden, BrooksThe economic evaluation of educational policies and programs employing the ingredients method for cost, cost-effectiveness, or benefit-cost analysis is no exception to the critique that economic models require an untenable number of assumptions. Educational economists must make assumptions due to two sources of uncertainty: model uncertainty, as in the well-documented debate over the selection of the appropriate social discount rate to calculate present value and empirical uncertainty due to the infeasibility of gathering sufficiently detailed data on all resources. This paper highlights the frequency of empirical assumptions made in the education literature and proposes a set of harmonized assumptions to address empirical uncertainty that can be used to increase comparability of economic evaluation across programs and across studies. By building consensus on a set of reasonable, empirically derived assumptions that are selected so as to minimally distort the results of evaluations, differences in costs, cost effectiveness, and benefit-cost ratios can be more confidently ascribed to meaningful differences in resource use, program implementation, and program effectiveness, as opposed to differences in choices made by the analyst.Publication The Economic Value of Social and Emotional Learning(2015-09-01) Belfield, Clive R.; Bowden, Brooks; Klapp, Alli; Levin, Henry; Shand, Robert; Zander, SabineThere is a growing body of research emphasizing the advantages of teaching students social and emotional (SE) skills in school. Here we examine the economic value of these skills within a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) framework. Our examination has three parts. First, we describe how the current method of BCA must be expanded to adequately evaluate SE skills, and we identify important decisions analysts must make. Second, we review the evidence on the benefits of SE skills, again noting key methodological issues with respect to shadow pricing. Finally, we perform BCA of four selected social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions: 4Rs; Second Step, Life Skills Training; and Responsive Classroom. These analyses illustrate both methodological and empirical challenges in estimating net present values for these interventions. Even with these challenges, we find that the benefits of these interventions substantially outweigh the costs. We highlight promising areas of research for improving the application of BCA to SEL.Publication Mobilizing Volunteer Tutors to Improve Student Literacy(2015-03-01) Jacob, Robin Tepper; Armstrong, Catherine; Willard, Jacklyn; Bowden, Brooks; Pan, YilinThis report evaluates the implementation, impacts, and costs of Reading Partners, a school-based early-intervention literacy program that relies on volunteer tutors. The work is a partnership between MDRC and CBCSE. The findings illustrate that the program is an efficient option for schools to consider in providing supplemental reading services to students who are not reading at grade-level.