The skills your students learn in your policy analysis course are crucial to their future careers as policy analysts and public managers. Not only is the content of the course important, but how that information is conveyed makes all the difference over the course of your semester.

Do students complain about your current policy analysis text?

Would they benefit from an engaging book that makes clear how quantitative tools will be useful in their future careers?

If the answer is yes, take a close look at Dipak Gupta's new text, Analyzing Public Policy: Concepts, Tools and Techniques. Employing a conversational tone and offering a wealth of real-world policy examples, Gupta develops the tools and techniques of policy analysis in a sequenced and logical fashion.

The book begins with a brief introduction to the field of public policy and the vital importance of policy analysis in public and non-profit organizations. The students' toolbox is gradually filled, as they are taught research design, hypothesis testing, projection, forecasting, multiple regression, and benefit-cost analysis. Each concept is clearly defined and developed through specific cases, allowing students to master a skill and understand its practical application. Hundreds of tables and figures graphically show ideas and data, while boxed case studies highlight policy dilemmas of particular interest. Abundant key terms and exercises help students review and study.

1. The Field of Public Policy
Four Models of Policy Making
Economic Rationality, Quantitative Analyses, and Human Behavior
Value Judgments in Policy Analysis

2. Government and the Market
The Fundamental Contributions of Economic Analyses
Market Failure: Why Government Interferes in a Free Market
Government as a Partner
Government Failure
Limiting Government Intervention: Joint Partnership in a Mixed Economy

3. The Policy Process
Agenda Setting
Policy Formulation
Policy Adoption
Policy Implementation
Policy Evaluation
Policy Change
Policy Termination

4. Critical Thinking and Research Design
Five Steps of Objective Analysis
Setting Goals
Choosing a Method of Analysis
Choosing the Right Model
Designing Policy Research
Making Quick Decisions
Challenges to Critical Thinking: Biases in Reasoning
A Few Parting Suggestions

5. Basic Statistics
The Building Blocks of Quantitative Analysis
Numbers as Storytellers
Methods of Descriptive Statistics
Correlation Coefficient: Pearson's

6. Probability and Hypothesis Testing
Objective Probability
Subjective Probability

7. Sources of Data
What Are We Measuring?
Primary Data: Conducting a Survey
Quantification of Survey Data
Reporting of Survey Results
Conducting Focus Groups
Secondary Data

8. Making Sense of Numbers
The Worth of a Picture: The Graphical Methods of Analysis
To Tell the Truth and Nothing But the Truth
Those Not So Innocent Numbers
Structure Above a Swamp

9. Projection Techniques: When History Is Inadequate
Projection Versus Causal Prediction
Inadequacy of History
Judgmental Methods of Projection

10. Projection Techniques: Analysis of Historical Data
Components of Trend
The Patterns of Time Trend
Adjustment Methods
Smoothing Out the Fluctuations
The Politics of Forecasting

11. Projection Techniques: The Method of Least Squares
Building a Least Squares Model
How Good Are the Results?
What Happens If the Trend Changes?
Gradual Changes in Trend: Estimation of Nonlinear Trends
Forecasting and Its Problems

12. Models of Causal Prediction: Multiple Regression
Building a Causal Model
Estimation of the Model
Interpretation of the Estimated Results
How Good Is the Model?
When Regression Results Are Suspect: The Errors of Estimation

13. The Elements of Strategic Thinking: Decision Tree and Game Theory
Getting a Grip on Uncertainty
Risk and Expected Payoff
The Decision Tree
The Pitfalls of Dominant Strategy: The Prisoner's Dilemma

14. Choosing the Best Alternative: Benefit-Cost Analysis
Steps Toward Conducting a Benefit-Cost Analysis
Introduction of Time: Present Value Analysis
Sensitivity Analysis
Choice of Discount Rate
The Internal Rate of Return
The Limits of Benefit-Cost Analysis: Redistribution of Income
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: The Problem of an Ill-Defined Objective Function

"The author has integrated public policy, policy analysis, and methods into what promises to be an interesting, well-written, and dynamic book."

Dipak Gupta is professor in the School of Public Administration and Urban Studies and the Hansen Professor of Peace Studies at San Diego State University. His latest publications include Clash of Identities (1998) and the forthcoming Path to Collective Madness: A Study in Social Order and Political Pathology.