The Study Of Public Policy Evaluation Based On Facts & Values

What is the relationship between facts and values?This is an ancient question without final conclusion.However,there is no scientific research can avoid to answer or explain it and public policy evaluation is no exception. During the development of public policy evaluation, deep deliberating and intense debating around this issue has never stopped for a while. The dichotomybetween facts and values was once the mainstream of public policy evaluation. The pursuit of purely rational evaluation also greatly promoted the development of public policy evaluation. But with deeper research on public policy evaluation, problems and potential risks brought by lacking of values began to appear. The voice of "returning of values" and "integration of facts and values "has been higher and higher. At present, the thought of integrating facts evaluation and values evaluation has received agreement of most scholars. The conversionfrom single rational mode to the couplingmultivariate rational mode has become the new trend of public policy evaluation. But, how to understand the relationship between facts and values? How to achieve integration of facts evaluation and values evaluation? How to make structural arrangementsfor factors of public policy evaluation? How to achieve values evaluation objectively? These existing problems in reality has become the shackles whichhave restrictedfurther development of public policy evaluation.This paper took the above-mentioned unresolved theoretical and practical problemsas logical starting points. It focused on the integration of facts evaluation and values evaluation and concentrated on building an universal and operational public policy evaluation framework.Taking the integration of facts evaluation and values evaluation as a logical line and "Literature review-Theory analysis-Realizing Route-Case study" as a research path, this paper presented public policy evaluation framework of combining facts and values through logical deduction which was based on summarizing relevant research results onpublic policy evaluation. And in the end, this paper made an empirical evaluation which was a case study on rural tax- and -fees reform policies to test and verify the universality and operability of the framework.During the specific process of study, the following results were obtained:Firstly, a public policy evaluation framework based on facts and values was built. According to the traceability of public policy, this research built a policy evaluation framework based on facts and values and linked the two sides by public policy objectives. This result made a breakthrough on philosophical discussion and realized the unity of experience and norms. Specifically, the pattern achieved backward reasoning of "policies effects--policies objectives-policy values" by following the path of starting values evaluation after facts evaluation and taking policy objectives as the mediator. Through such a logic, a values judgment, which is considered as irrational, can be made on the basis of rational facts evaluation.Secondly, a path of public policy evaluation was built based on facts and values. Guided by theoretical analysis, this article formed a complete path of public policy evaluation and divided public policy evaluation into 3 parts, which were extraction of policy objectives, measuring the effects of policy objectives and values judging of policy overall performance. Through such anevaluation path, operabilitywas given to facts evaluation and values evaluation, and policy values, policies evaluation subjects, policy objectives, policy target groups and policy assessment method were arranged structrually. As a result, the research solved the dilemma of multivariate mode to a certain extent and remedied the inadequacy of existing research.Thirdly, the research promoted the integration of public policy evaluation methods.Most previous research on public policy evaluation only used single method to study the effects of policies, and there is less literature about quantitative evaluation. On the basis of literature review, this paper introduced a series of evaluation methods, such as content analysis, social network analysis, Multi-attribute utility analysis, instrumental variable method, difference-in-differences method, policy argumentation method, into the system of public policy evaluation. Thus, a collection of public policy evaluation methods was formed, improving the validity of public policy evaluation, and remedyingthe defects of Chinese public policy evaluation in the area of empirical study.Finally, a performance evaluation on rural tax-and-fees reform policies was done, which evaluating the target policies from two dimensions of facts and values. According to the public policy evaluation mode described in the previous research, selecting rural tax-and-fees reform policies as example, a comprehensive empirical study was conducted, which would fill the vacancy of domestic research in this area. Based on the determination of public policy objectives, this research made performance evaluation on rural tax-and-fees reform policies from two dimensions of facts and values, taking responsibility, fairness and expansibility as values guidance. The research found following conclusions. Firstly, rural tax-and-fees reform policies answered the interests plea of farmers, significantly contributed to the growth of farmers’income, and had lasting effecton increasing farmers’income. Secondly, the rural tax-and-fees reform policies had failed to meet the requirements of fair values. The reason is that the policies pursues formal absolute fairness which causes substantial injustice. And choosing to perform, which is the behavior of local governments, hampered the fairness of implementation process.Thirdly, the reform of rural tax-and-fees will furtherly lead to the increasingof government debt. Such financial risks will overdraft development potential, and have negative effect on the development and stability of regional and rural area.