Workshop on Federal Program Evaluation

The workshop will emphasize the importance of value for money assessments of federal programs and provide practical guidance on how to undertake them. The target audience of the workshop is federal government evaluators, performance measurement specialists, firms and individuals who do evaluation work for the federal government, and public policy analysts.

Two internationally recognized experts have agreed to lead sessions at the workshop. Bev Dahlby, who is now affiliated with the School of Public Policy in Calgary, will discuss using benefit-cost analysis to assess programs. Nathan Hendren, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will discuss a variant of benefit-cost analysis that has allowed him to assess US programs and policies using a standardized methodology.

The workshop will also feature discussions of the state of the evaluation function and measures to strengthen it.

Speakers:

• Andres Velez-Guerra, Executive Director, Results Division, Treasury Board Secretariat
• Bev Dahlby, Research Fellow, School of Public Policy, Calgary
• Timothy Folkins, Expert Advisor, Centre of Regulatory Expertise, Treasury Board Secretariat
• Jérôme Mercier, Director General Evaluation, Employment and Social Development Canada
• Nathan Hendren, Professor of Economics, MIT     
• Karen Myers, President and CEO, Blueprint
• John Lester, Fellow in Residence, C.D. Howe Institute
• Max Palamar, Vice President of Data Capacity and Analytics and a co-founder, Blueprint

Preliminary Program

9:30 am – 9:40 am         Opening Remarks

• Speaker: Karen Myers, President and CEO, Blueprint

9:45 am – 10:45 am      Session 1: Value for Money Evaluations

1. Moving the yardstick together

• Speaker: Andres Velez-Guerra, Executive Director, Results Division, Treasury Board Secretariat

2. Performing value for money evaluations: an overview

• Speaker: John Lester, Fellow in Residence, C.D. Howe Institute

10:45 am – 11:00 am       Break & Refreshments

11:00 am – 12:00 pm   Session 2: Applying benefit-cost analysis

1. Application to regulatory initiatives
   • Speaker: Timothy Folkins, Expert Advisor, Centre of Regulatory Expertise, Treasury Board Secretariat
2. Application to active labour market programs
   • Speaker: Jérôme Mercier, Director General Evaluation, Employment and Social Development Canada

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm      Working Lunch

1:10 pm – 2:40 pm         Session 3: A new framework for evaluating government programs and
        policies

1. Key concepts: the marginal cost and marginal value of public funds
   • Speaker: Bev Dahlby, Research Fellow, School of Public Policy, Calgary (Virtual)
2. Lessons from the marginal value of public funds approach to measuring the welfare impacts of government policy changes
   • Speaker: Nathan Hendren, Professor of Economics, MIT (Virtual)

2:40 pm – 2:50 pm         Break & Refreshments

2:50 pm – 3:50 pm         Session 4: Strengthening the evaluation function

1. Effective use of administrative data in evaluations
   • Speakers: Karen Myers, President and CEO and Max Palamar, Vice President, Data Capacity and Analytics, Blueprint
2. State of the evaluation function and how to strengthen it
   • Speaker: Benoît Robidoux, Former Senior Associate Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development Canada

3:50 pm – 4:00 pm         Concluding Remarks

• Speaker: John Lester, Fellow-in-Residence, C.D. Howe Institute

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm         Reception