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The Investment Approach to Public Service Provision
Author(s) -
Mintrom Michael,
Luetjens Joannah
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8500.12250
Subject(s) - investment (military) , checklist , work (physics) , government (linguistics) , service (business) , public service , business , public policy , action (physics) , public investment , baseline (sea) , public economics , finance , public relations , economics , political science , economic growth , marketing , public fund , politics , engineering , psychology , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , law , cognitive psychology
The investment approach to public service provision is now receiving considerable attention worldwide. By promoting data‐intensive assessments of baseline conditions and how government action can improve on them, the approach holds the potential to transform policy development, service implementation, and program evaluation. Recently, variations on the investment approach have been applied in Australia to explore the effectiveness of specific programs in employment training, criminal justice, and infrastructure development. This article reviews the investment approach, presents a Public Investment Checklist to guide such work, and discusses three examples. It concludes by considering the implications of investment thinking for the work of policy designers and public managers.