The Evaluation of State Programs for International Business Development

Abstract

In recent years virtually all of the states have begun efforts to promote international business. They engage in a wide range of activities at home and abroad to increase state exports and to lure foreign direct investors to their states. It is somewhat surprising that only a modest amount of evaluation of these substantial efforts has taken place, and most of it sheds little light on the effects of the programs. Much activity has gone completely unrecorded, output measures abound where outcome monitoring appears possible, and little attention has been paid to causality. The article discusses the reasons that nearly all states have failed so far to produce effective evaluation and offers a series of suggestions aimed at both a more comprehensive tracking of outcomes and a more satisfactory causal linkage between outcomes and program efforts.