Analiza de impact în sectorul public

Abstract

This paper is meant to analyse the main coordinates of impact assessment in public sphere in general and public administration in particular. In view of this, principial experimental design particularities will be adressed along with the main peculiarities of such studies in the public field. The main constraints are related either to methodological rigour or to political implications. The paper is intended to be a call for more sustained action towards the use of impact assessment analysis in the Romanian public administration field. The key-concepts generally used by the theory and the praxis of impact assessment are: confounding factors, construct validity, design effects, generalizability, gross outcome effects, impact, meta-analysis, net effects, quasi-experiment, randomized experiment, reliability, reproducibility, selection bias etc. The article also examines the relationship between academic and applied research in the field of public administration and opens the discussion of political involvement in the practical issue of impact assessments.