Almost a Policy
Transmission through Administrative Handoffs
Research question
When a policy passes through administrative handoffs, which information must survive or be acquired for a downstream counterfactual to remain identified and precise?
Abstract
Which records should an agency preserve for a given evaluation question? This paper follows target information through administrative handoffs and studies retention under a record budget. A local ledger distinguishes identification from precision and gives the score dimensions required for repair. An Oregon Medicaid lottery exercise evaluates a constructed release. In its Gaussian summary model, approval following invitation loses one direction in the aggregate and four across groups. Under independent-person information, a 25-percent link budget gives an equal-weight group covariance criterion 1.04 times full linkage with targeted retention, compared with 1.83 under uniform retention.
In one sentence
A policy can survive one administrative handoff intact and lose another counterfactual at the very same handoff.