Rebuilding the Research Capacity at HUD (2008) / Chapter Skim
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5 Evaluation of In-House Research
5 Evaluation of In-House Research
Pages 79-92
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From page 79... ...
Indeed, as mentioned elsewhere in this report, due to staff reductions PD&R no longer has a policy demonstration division with the capability to carry out even limited field pilot programs or experiments. However, in-house research is usually the preferred approach when access to administrative 79
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From page 80... ...
The effective management of complex and stateof-the-art research programs requires active participation in an agency of people who are themselves current on research methods and results. Consequently, for most large-scale external studies, PD&R staff play a significant role in developing the research questions, research design, sampling plan, and at times the data collection instruments.
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From page 81... ...
Prior to drawing a sample, the titles of all documents were reviewed. In-house reports that did TABLE 5-1 Criteria for Evaluating In-House Research Evaluation Criteria Explanation Relevance and importance of Individual studies should be directly related to HUD's topic current agenda, or otherwise of high department priority.
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From page 82... ...
A Review Essay (Shroder, 2002) In-Depth Analysis Welfare Reform Impacts on Public Housing Program: A Preliminary Forecast (U.S.
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From page 83... ...
The Uses of Discretionary Authority in the Public Housing Program: A Baseline Inventory of Issues, Policy, and Practice (Devine, Rubin, and Gray, 1999) The Number of Federally Assisted Units Under Lease and the Costs of Leased Units to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (U.S.
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From page 84... ...
Generally, while this type of work does not require sophisticated research methodologies, it may involve the extraction of relevant information from one or more administrative data systems requiring complex computer programs and sophisticated data manipulation skills. Not infrequently, a single descriptive report may require the need to draw compatible data from multiple data bases or to merge program data from different systems.
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From page 85... ...
of 1998 was a pivotal time in the history of the public housing program because it granted the nation's public housing agencies unprecedented flexibility and latitude in such areas as tenant selection, the use of income incentives, and the setting of minimum and ceiling rents. Because QHWRA had the potential to fundamentally change the nature of public housing, establishing a baseline for how Public Housing Authorities were exercising discretionary authority prior to QHWRA was essential in laying the groundwork for PD&R to be able to assess the long-term impacts of public housing reform in the future in a systematic way.
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From page 86... ...
In 1990 the Senate Appropriations Committee directed HUD to "resume the annual compilation of a worst case needs survey of the United States." Consequently, an important in-house research product of PD&R is the regular report to Congress on worst case housing needs, and several versions of this report fell into the committee's sample. The principal source of national housing data for the worst case needs report has been the biennial American Housing Survey (AHS)
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From page 87... ...
The development and fine tuning of program formulas require a sophisticated understanding of legislative and regulatory program requirements and the methodological ability to develop alternative formulas and test their sensitivity. Prominent examples of this important work include the fine tuning and consideration of alternative formulas for HUD's largest community development program, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)
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From page 88... ...
Small Business Administration, 2006) , provided Congress with detailed tables on the extent and type of hurricane-caused damage for individual housing units, by tenure, insurance status, and housing type for properties in the five states.
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From page 89... ...
The bill contains a large number of provisions, including the establishment of a new independent regulatory agency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) , designed to improve the safety and soundness supervision of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks.
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From page 90... ...
Virtually all studies filled important information gaps, and a substantial fraction addressed new or previously unexplored or underexplored research questions important to policy or program administration. Perhaps the most sophisticated studies the committee reviewed were products of PD&R's Office of Economic Affairs, which as noted previously until the introduction of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 involved HUD's oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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From page 91... ...
Not following up internally conducted baseline studies with formal external studies of the systematic impacts of policy change risks wasting internal resources.
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From page 92... ...
92 REBUILDING THE RESEARCH CAPACITY AT HUD Recommendation 5-3: PD&R should encourage and assign staff to attend selected conferences on a regular basis, to help staff stay up to date on evolving research and methods, find out about promising scholars, gain insight on emerging policy questions, and generate fresh ideas about potential research that HUD should be conducting. Recommendation 5-4: The assistant secretary of PD&R should provide incentives to professional research staff to publish their work.
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