For one-semester, senior/graduate-level courses in Introduction to Policy Analysis, Fundamentals of Public Policy, Policy Analysis, Public Policy, Public Finance, Cost-Benefit Analysis, and Government and Business.

This introduction explores both the hows and whys of the practices of public policy. The text provides reality-based practical advice about how to actually conduct policy analysis and demonstrate the application of advanced analytic techniques.

I. INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS.

1. Preview: The Canadian Salmon Fishery.

2. What Is Policy Analysis?

3. Toward Professional Ethics.

II. CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS FOR PROBLEM ANALYSIS.

4. Efficiency and the Idealized Competitive Model.

5. Rationales for Public Policy: Market Failures.

6. Rationales for Public Policy: Other Limitations of the Competitive Framework.

7. Rationales for Public Policy: Distributional and Other Goals.

8. Limits to Public Intervention: Government Failures.

9. Correcting Market and Government Failures: Generic Policies.

III. CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS FOR PROBLEM ANALYSIS.

10. Correcting Market and Government Failures: Generic Policy Instruments.

11. Adoption and Implementation.

12. Government Supply: Drawing Organizational Boundaries.

IV. DOING POLICY ANALYSIS.

13. Gathering Information for Policy Analysis.

14. Landing on Your Feet: How to Confront Policy Problems.

15. Goals/Alternatives Matrices: Some Examples from CBO Studies.

16. Benefit-Cost Analysis.

V. CASE STUDIES OF POLICY ANALYSIS.

17. Benefit-Cost Analysis in a Bureaucratic Setting: The Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

18. When Statistics Count: Revising the Lead Standard for Gasoline.

VI. CONCLUSION.

19. Doing Well and Doing Good.