The 1980s were rough on state and local governments and there is little reason to believe that the 1990s are going to be any kinder. Faced with the "3 Rs," tax revolts, recessions, and reductions in federal aid, state and local governments have been placed in the unenviable position of being asked to do more with less. West Virginia off icials, like their counterparts in other states, are receiving far less assistance from the national government at the very same time that the demands for public solutions for the problems of education, economic development, health care, environmental protection, and other concerns continue to grow unabated. In short, these are difficult times for state and local government officials. Yet, these can also be exciting times as state and local government officials experiment with novel approaches to solve old and new problems alike. No matter what solutions are considered - tax increases, new policy initiatives, reorganizations, or budget cuts aimed at "rightsizing" government -the need for reliable, usable information to guide difficult decisions has never been greater. Properly done and consumed, policy analysis, the systematic assessment of policy problems and their solutions, can provide some, if not all, of the information necessary to make viable policy decisions to ensure effective, efficient, and fair public policies.

Policy analysis in federal, state and local government is hardly new. Over the last three decades, millions of dollars have been spent to fund policy research and analysis at all levels and branches of government. At the federal level, policy analysts are found inthe White House (e.g. the Off ice of Management and Budget, the National Security Council, and the Council of Economic Advisors) and throughout the federal bureaucracy. Congress too has its policy analysis

David M. Hedge is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. Prior to joining the University of Florida's faculty, he taught for eleven years in West Virginia University's Political Science Department and directed the Department's Graduate Program in Policy Studies.

capabilities in the staffs of its standing committees (several thousand by last count), the General Accounting Off ice, the Office of Technology Assessment, and the Congressional Budget Office. Policy analysts are employed by state and local governments as well, often scattered throughout planning, evaluation, budget, and analysis divisions found in governors', mayors', or managers'off ices, executive agencies, and legislative bodies. In addition, policy analysts are found outside of government in "think tanks," private consulting firms and, increasingly, universities.

The growth of policy analysis in government has been matched by efforts to train a corps of individuals as policy analysts. At West Virginia University, for example, students in the masters and doctoral programs in Political Science enroll in a rigorous program of practical and classroom training in government, economics, computing, and research methods to prepare for careers as policy analysts in government and the private sector. Graduates of the program serve in analysis and research divisions throughout West Virginia, neighboring states, and the federal government.

While considerable attention has been paid to training analysts-to-be, much less attention has been paid to those who consume policy analysis - policymakers and administrators. That has been a serious and costly mistake. In all too many cases, policy analysis is either not used or riot used properly because the practitioners for whom policy analysis was ostensibly provided lacked an understanding of the nature of policy analysis.

This article provides policymakers and practitioners with an overview of policy analysis and how that enterprise can fit into and benefit their policy decisions. Although the technical aspects of analysis are discussed, the more immediate goal is to provide the readerwith a sense of what questions policy analysiscan answerat various points inthe decision-making process and how, in a general sense, policy analysis can help you make more informed and, hopefully, better decisions.

Analysis In Government: An Overview

Any number of definitions of policy analysis are available. One of the most insightful is off ered by E.S. Quade, a policy analyst at the Rand Corporation:

In a broad sense, policy analysis is a form of applied research carded out to acquire a deeper understanding of sociotechnical issues and to bring about better solutions. Attempting to bring modern science and technology to bear on society's problems, policy analysis searches for feasible courses of action, generating information and marshaling evidence of the benefits and other consequences that would follow their adoption and implementation (Quade 1984).

Quade's definition points to a number of features that characterize policy analysis. First, policy analysis is rigorous and systematic. Typically, it requires extensive data collection and fairly sophisticated statistical analysis because answers to complex policy questions are often neither self evident nor obvious. Moreover, the decisions are likely to affect (for good or bad) thousands or millions of people. And, given limited resources, it is necessary to determine not only what programs and policies work and work best, but which ones do so at the least cost. All of that requires the very best information and thought that can be brought to bear on policy problems and solutions.

Quade's definition also suggests a second characteristic - relevance. The purpose of policy research is to help decisionmakers find workable solutions to important policy problems. Regardless of how well policy analysis is done and how much rigor it achieves, the ultimate test is whether governments can improve the quality of public policies through more informed decisions.

Finally, Quade's use of the word "feasible" stresses the necessity for policy analysis that is sensitive to fiscal, political, and organizational realities. Sometimes what is possible in theory is not possible in the complex world of government.

To better understand what policy analysis entails and its values for decision-making, it is useful to think about the larger processes involved in policyrnaking and governing. At the risk of oversimplifying, Figure 1 suggests that policies

move through five stages as they move into and out of government. At the problem stage, someone concludes that a problem exists (e.g. inadequate education or pollution) and that the problem warrants government attention. At the decision-making stage, a number of things happen, depending on the circumstances. At the very outset, a decision has to be made to even consider the issue and to place it onto government's agenda. Because the time and resources of government are limited, only a handful of issues can make it onto government's agenda. Once that occurs, and only then, are policy alternatives identified and choices made among them. Assuming that a policy or program emerges from the decision-making process it then moves into the third stage, the point at which policies are implemented, typically by administrative agencies, and hopefully as intended. Then, policy exits government and begins to impact on the lives of individuals and interests in the community. Ideally, the initial problem is resolved. However, as the feedback arrow suggests, policy problems are rarely resolved in a one-shot fashion. Instead, program implementation and impacts often generate an additional set of demands and the process begins anew.

At each stage of the policy process government faces a number of fundamentally diff icult decisions or analytic concerns. For example, at the problem stage it is necessary to know what factors contributed to the problem. At the decision-making stage, it is necessary to know, at a minimum, what options are available and what impacts they are likely to have. At the implementation stage, it is necessary to know whether policies are being carried out, and as intended, by the original legislation. Arid, of course, the most important questions arise at the impact stage. To what extent have policy goals been realized? What elements of the program worked, which ones did not? What changes need to be made in existing policies?

To sort all of this out, diff erent kinds of policy analysis are available at each stage of the process. At the problem stage, policy analysis takes the form of problem identification or needs assessment. At the decision-making stage, policy analysis consists of assessing policy options. At the implementation stage, implementation analysisisconducted. As policies begin to impact on society, policy analysis is concerned with evaluation.

Identifying Policy Problems

Before policy problems can be solved, they must first be defined. In policy analysis, defining the problem is every bit as important as choosing among policy alternatives. Successfully dealing with policy problems requires that we see them clearly and that we see them early (Starling 1979). It is a diff icult enterprise. The problems facing policymakers are complex, often intractable, multifaceted, and constantly changing. A numberof techniques are available for assessing policy problems - surveys of target groups, forecasting techniques, and causal models. The key, however, is asking the following four questions.

1. What Is the magnitude of the problem?

Seeing problems clearly requires a fairly accurate sense of how many people are affected by the problem and how severe the problem actually is. For example, in assessing the need for a meals-on-wheels program, it is necessary to know how many of the elderly are unable to cook their own meals or travel somewhere (to a relative's home or a restaurant) to obtain a meal. It's also necessary to know about the quality of their diets and dietary needs. In this case, a survey of the target population -the community's elderly - might be the optimal way to assess program need. Surveys of target groups and other relevant actors are frequently used to determine the extent to which policy problems exist. In othercases, the information necessaryto gauge the level of need is often provided by government itself. Governments collect considerable information in the daily course of affairs. Often that information can be used to do needs assessment. For example, a close examination of complaints filed with the state's attorney general's office may indicate the need fortougher enforcement of consumer product standards in particular product areas. In a parallel fashion, analysis of real estate transactions can indicate whether and to what extent certain areas of the community are suffering redlining by mortgage lenders.

2. What are the underlying causes of the problem?

To effectively solve public problems, it is often necessary to know the problem's causes. Unemployment is a good example. The inability to gain and keep a job may reflect a number of factors, including discrimination, recessionary forces, a lack of job skills, inadequate transportation, the unavailability of affordable day care facilities, or a lack of motivation. Obviously, the "appropriate" policy solution to unemployment depends on the mix of influences that contribute to unemployment. Frequently knowing who is affected by the problem can provide clues to its causes. If a large proportion of the unemployed are single mothers with younger, school-age children, then job-training and employment programs may need to include provisions for day care. Alternately, if the pool of unemployed consists primarily of laid-off workers from declining industries (e.g. steel or coal) then job training programs that help individuals retrain are more to the point. The unemployment example suggests that policyrnakers need to develop causal models of policy problems as they attempt to provide policy solutions.

3. How Is the problem changing over time?

A key part of understanding a policy problem is knowing whether and how that problem is changing over time. A decade ago, the problem of health insurance centered on those who lacked insurance of any kind, most typically the pooror high risk groups. Today, the concern is as muchwith the problems of cost and coverage among those who have insurance as it is with those lacking insurance. The point is that problems change and discussions of policy solutions need to recognize and anticipate those changes. Often policy analysts use forecasting technologies that extrapolate from existing time series data in an attemptto anticipate future shifts in the character and magnitude of policy problems. Such techniques have been used to project the rate of increase in, among other things, the incidence of AIDS, school enrollments, unemployment, and birthrates. In other instances, panels of experts are brought together in "brainstorming" sessions aimed at anticipating afternative future scenarios.

4. How do key actors view the problem?

"Hard" evidence aside, there is frequently disagreement about the causes, magnitude, and dynamics of policy problems or, for that matter, whether particular problems are appropriately addressed by government at all. Accordingly, a complete definition of the problem should describe the extent to which there is agreement among relevant groups about the nature and importance of a potential problem. A survey of key actors can begin the process of clarifying areas of agreement and disagreement and, hopefully, make it easier to reach whatever consensus is possible in subsequent policy discussions.

Assessing Policy Options

Ultimately policyrnakers must choose the best course of action for remedying policy problems. But what solutions will work best and most economically? Typically, policymakers are put into the role of fortune tellers, prophets, and judges. As fortune tellers and prophets, they must anticipate the likely effects of various policy choices for years to come, effects that are not only uncertain but likely to change with larger shifts in society and the economy. As judges, they must deal with difficult value tradeoffs. In a world of limited resources, satisfying one goal often requires sacrificing another.

What are the tradeoffs; of increasing educational spending as opposed to health care, welfare programs, or prison reform?

Policy analysis cannot providethe final answersto these and similar questions, but it can usefully inform decisionmakers as they wrestle with these difficult questions. It can do that by helping policyrnakers identify policy alternatives and estimate their likely eff ects (both intended and unintended, direct and indirect, and in the long and short terms). The first task is the easiest. For most problems, there are any number of possible solutions. Indeed, the hardest job at times is reducing the list of policy alternativesto a manageable number. Policyoptions can be gleaned from a variety of sources. Sometimes it is useful to consider what other governments have done or are doing. Numerous publications regularly report the policy innovations of state and local governments, including Governing, State Legislatures, State Government, and the National Civic Review In other instances, policy options are implied in our understanding of policy problems. For example, if existing research suggests that a lack of jobs reflects a lack of skills or education (versus discrimination or a lagging economy), the policy options that need to be considered are pretty obvious - job training or programs that support education. Finally, surveying key policy actors is a goodway of generating a range of policy options and, equally important, finding options that enjoy some modicum of political feasibility. While the list of key actors will vary, likely candidates would include interest groups' spokespersons, relevant agency personnel, legislators and their staffs, other elected officials, and potential program clients.

It is more difficult to assess the likely effects of alternative policy proposals. Once again, a number of techniques are available. In many cases, there is an existing body of research that looks at the impacts of similar programs in other settings. For example, there is a sizable literature on the effectiveness of workfare programs that many states, including West Virginia, put into place during the 1970s and 1980s. Generally, those studies conclude that workfare programs raise the earned income of welfare recipients and reduce their dependency on government (Mead 1988). We also know quite a bit about educational reform, health care regulation, economic development, impact fees, and prison reform, just a few of the areas in which state and local governments have experimented in recent years.

Policymakers are often concerned with programs that are similar to those already in place. In those instances, assessments of existing programs can shed light on the effectiveness of proposed policies. Evaluations of educational initiatives already adopted may demonstrate, for example, that reductions in student/teacher ratios have had a positive effect on student performance while curriculum changes in math or English have not. In addition, govemments are learning the values of pilot or demonstration programs - program initiatives adopted on a small-scale, trial basis, forthe purpose of learning whattheirlikely eff ects would be if adopted on a more comprehensive basis. The advantages of pilot programs are clear. Governments can gain initial insights into the workability of various programs without having to commit scarce political and economic resources to an untried program.

Unfortunately, policymakers do not always have existing programs to learn f rom. At that point, it is necessary to project the likely impacts of policy alternatives by using forecasting techniques. For example, based on tax rates, existing income or sales information, and economic forecasts, economists can project the likely yield from adopting an increase in the sales tax or a new income tax.

Regardless of technique, both policy analysts and policyrnakers need to assess alternative proposals against two sets of criteria or benchmarks: those reflecting the desirability of particular policies and their likely consequences and those which speak to the feasibililyof options (McRae and Wilde 1979). On the desirability side, policies should be judged in terms of their likely effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. Obviously, we want policies that are likely to achieve their intended effects. In addition, an assessment of policy options should also consider issues of efficiency and equity. This is riot the place for a lengthy discourse on cost-benefit analysis and how one assesses efficiency, but it is important to stress the need to consider the full range of likely benefits and costs. Programs not only achieve (or fail to achieve) their stated objectives but produce additional consequences as well. Environmental programs, for example, not only curtail pollution, but in doing so, affect employment levels, property values, health care, and the community's aesthetics. Comparing environmental policy options solely in terms of possible reductions in pollution would ignore important side effects and costs.

In a related fashion, equity and fairness must be addressed. Among other things, federal and state laws impose a series of procedural requirements including prohibitions against discrimination and guarantees of administrative and judicial due process. More broadly, policymakers are well-advised to consider the distributional consequences of their options; various segments of the community will be affected differently by your choices and those differences are often important in and of themselves. For example, efforts to increase energy conservation through higher energy prices exact an especially burdensome toll on the elderly and the poor. Accordingly, in evaluating the impact of energy initiatives, analysts need to consider the extent to which the poor and elderly are likely to suffer.

Policies need to be judged in terms of their political, social, and economic feasibility as well. Sometimes the "best" proposal from a technical perspective lacks suff icient political support to be considered. Similarly, some policy choices are not likely to generate the kind of social support necessary to ensure their success once put into place. Economic considerations also have to be taken into account. Most analysts agree, for example, that federal regulations mandating that buses and subways be handicapped accessible are more costly than is necessary to ensure handicapped Americans access to public transportation. In a parallel fashion, court rulings mandating prison and school reform should not ignore the limited economic potential of communities and states to comply.

Implementation Analysis

For decades, academicians and even policymakers; too often ignored how policies were implemented or carried out by administrative agencies. All too frequently it was assumed that, once enacted, policies and programs would somehow implement themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. For any number of reasons, sometimes programs are not carded out at all, suffer significant delays, or, once implemented, deviate substantially from the intentions of the original legislation. In some cases, this reflects the large amount of discretion typically afforded bureaucrats and the fact that agency off icials often have goals out of sync with legislative intent. In still other instances, implementation failure reflects legislation that is vague with respect to goals and objectives or the means for achieving those outcomes. In any event, policy failure is often a case of implementation failure. As a result, policymakers and program managers need greater knowledge of what takes place as policies are being implemented and how those actions and decisions affect the success or failure of public policies. Hopefully, armed with that information, decisionmakers can craft (or recraft) policy solutions that are not only politically and economically feasible but administratively feasible as well.

Evaluating Public Policies

The heart of policy analysis is program evaluation assessing the impacts of public policies after or as they occur, Properly done, program evaluations can indicate whether programs are achieving their goals and what additional social and economic consequences public poli

cies are producing. In addition, evaluations can indicate under what conditions programs are likely to succeed and the contributions various program elements make to that success. Armed with this kind of information, policymakers are in a better position to make critical choices concerning whether programs should be continued or, more typically, modified to better achieve their stated goals. While the ultimate goal of evaluations is improving the quality of decisions, evaluations and other forms of policy analysis can perform additional functions as well. First, evaluations force policymakers and program personnel to look more closely at their programs. In the process of interacting with evaluators, individuals associated with the program come away with a better sense of the rationale behind the program and how various elements contribute to program results. Second, evaluation, particularly if it is ongoing, fosters a more critical attitude among staff. Third, evaluations send a strong signal to agency personnel concerning the performance expectations of legislators and agency leaders. In short, quite apart from the information it provides, the evaluation process can contribute to program quality.

Evaluations take a number of forms ranging from quickand-dirty types of analysis to more rigorous designs, including policy experiments and cost-benefit analysis. These and other forms of evaluation typically fall into two camps product and process evaluations. Product evaluations are concerned primarily with program outcomes. Has the program realized its objectives?What additional consequences have occurred as a result of the program? To what extent do program benefits outweigh program costs? As useful as these kinds of evaluation are, they have their limits. Often decisionmakers and program managers need to know which elements of the program are working (or not) or the conditions under which the policy is effective. Process evaluations are attempts to get at these and other issues by looking at how variations in program outcomes are influenced by variations in program inputs and processes. For example, a product evaluation may indicate that educational reforms have produced, overall, higher student achievement scores. A process evaluation, in contrast, would build on that and look at, for example, how diff erences in students' characteristics or school curriculum or resources effect differences in student scores.

Four of the major approaches to evaluating policies are briefly described and assessed here. Although the four approaches differ in fundamental ways, they all share two properties: a concern with measuring the fullest possible range of program consequences (intended and unintended, short- and long-term) and a concern with establishing with as much validity as possible a causal link between program activities and program outcomes.

Quick-and-Dirty Analysis

Policy analysts have long realized that not all evaluations can be as rigorous or "scientific" as the textbooks would suggest. While rigorous evaluations provide more reliableand valid information, there are instances where limits on time and resources preclude expensive and time-consuming program assessments. Rather than doing nothing at all, a number of experts recommend less time-consuming and costly kinds of analysis (Wholey 1983). For example, "rapid feedback evaluation" relies primarily on information that is already available, such as agency records, reports, and a limited number of on-site visits. Much of the concern is with determining how accurate existing performance data are and what additional evaluation is warranted and feasible. Relatedly, analysts might conduct a survey of program participants (program personnel and clients) concerning their attitudes toward and evaluations of the program. While such an effort is subjective and fails to provide more precise information on program outcomes, it can be done easily, quickly and inexpensively. It can also suggest program areas that need further attention and whether further and more rigorous analysis is necessary.

Policy Experiments

The most rigorous form of evaluation is experimentation. By randomly assigning individuals to either a treatment or control group, the experimental design is able to say with a maximum amount of confidence that any subsequent changes in the lives of the treatment group are a function solely of the treatment. Coupled with program design and development, the experimental design can produce very valid and reliable information concerning the effects of a new program. For example, as an afternative to adopting a statewide educational voucher program, lawmakers might establish pilot programs in a small numberof communities. The experiment would require educators to randomly assign a handful of communities to either an educational voucher plan (the treatment) or the traditional school setting. Changes in achievement test scores could then be compared across each set of communities (voucher v. traditional). According to the logic of the experimental design, any differences in student performance between the two types of school systems would, in all likelihood, be the result of participation in the voucher program and equally important, nothing else. The payoffs from this kin~ of policy experiment are two-fold: policyrnakers gain accurate information on program impacts and new programs can be adopted on a smaller scale than usual to determine if they work. However, policy experiments have their drawbacks. Because some individuals are denied participation in the program, resentment by others (e.g. teachers in the non-voucher school) threaten the integrity and validity of the policy experiment. Ethical problems are also present. In some cases, the need for the program is so severe that program administrators and others are riot willing to deny anyone the program. However, there are many instances where these and other obstacles to experimentation can be overcome and policy experiments can become a viable means of evaluation.

Quasi-Experiments

Quasi-experiments provide an alternative to policy experiments where randomization is neither ethical nor practical. Instead of randomly assigning individuals to the program, an effort is made to find a group of individuals that match individuals who are already in a particular program (and who were selected on the basis of some factor other than random selection) for the purpose of comparison and evaluation. For example, suppose that the employability of high school dropouts increased after they participated in a job training program. One could conclude that the program had worked. However, to do so could be erroneous. Other events and circumstances could have produced those changes in employability. Perhaps the economy got better and they would have been hired even if they had riot participated in the job training program. To set aside the possibility that other factors may have produced the increase in employability, the analyst might find a comparable group of dropouts (in terms of age, job skills, education, etc.) fromthesame areawhodid notparticipate inthe program. A comparison of the changes in employment across the two groups could alleviate the suspicion that any increases in employment were the result of factors not associated with the job training program. If the rate of increase for the participants is higherthanthe increase fornon-participants, program advocates are in a better position to argue that participation produced a more employable individual. This particular design, the non-equivalent control group design, is just one of several imaginative quasi-experiments that can be used to evaluate programs.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

One of the more sophisticated approaches to evaluation and one that has enjoyed much use at the federal level is cost-benefit analysis. Putting aside technical decisions (such as shadow prices or the choice of a discount rate), cost-benef it analysis involves three basic steps: identifying program benefit and costs, estimating the dollar value of each, and comparing total benefits to total costs. The advantages of a cost-benefit approach are obvious. First, by looking at the net benef its and costs (using dollar value as a single, common currency), analysts are able to determine the program's net worth. As a result, cost-benefit analysis is better able to determine whether program advantages outweigh program disadvantages. Second, because benefits and costs are made comparable in terms of their economic or dollar value, cost-benefit analysis allows comparisons across program areas. Technically, health care programs can be compared to initiatives in education or welf are reform in terms of their net value to society. The problems with cost-benefit analysis are equally obvious. In the first place, many program benefits and costs do riot lend themselves to a dollar value. Try as we might, there is no wayto capture the full dollarvalue of a life or, forthat matter, the aesthetic value of a cleaner environment. Moreover, sometimes governments do not seek eff iciency, the bench mark for cost-benefit analysis, but rather equity and fairness. Welfare programs, for instance, redistribute wealth in society, and in doing so, necessarily produce a less eff icient use of capital. One alternative to strict cost-benef it analysis is cost-effectiveness analysis. Instead of trying to convert every program consequence into a dollar value, the analyst computes the direct cost of producing particular benefits. For example, in evaluating a mandatory seat-belt program, the analyst might divide the number of lives saved by the program by the total cost of the program to determine its economic value. In doing that, some of the more serious objections to cost-benefit analysis are overcome and policyrnakers are still able to seethe relationship of program costs to program benefits.

The Location of Policy Analysis

Having made a commitment to policy analysis, the natural question is where to locate that endeavor. Should agency analysis be "in-house" or should evaluations and other forms of analysis be contracted out to others or, alternatively, located elsewhere in government (e.g. a separate executive agency orthe legislature)? The answer is not straightforward. Placing analysis within an agency has a number of advantages - analysis is more likely to be ongoing, analysts are more familiar with the agency's operation, start-up costs are likely to be lower (e.g. no delays as projects are bid), in-house evaluators are likely to enjoy more cooperation and less resentment among line personnel, and, as result, analysis is more likelyto guide the decisions of agency personnel. But therein lies the danger. Analysis done within an agency may fail to be as objective as it should be or, at least, be viewed as such. Where this is the case, it probably is advisable to turn to others for analysis, particularly where the analysis and its results are likely to be controversial. Similarly, where the analysis task is a one-shot effort or involvesfairly complex methodologies that exceed the analysis division's capabilities, contracting out should be considered.

Policy Analysis at VVVU

One possible, and often overlooked, source of policy analysis in West Virginia is West Virginia University. As a comprehensive, land grant institution, West Virginia University is in a unique position to provide technical assistance to West Virginia's state and local governments. Faculty in every department and college offer a wide range of knowledge and expertise that public off icials can and should draw upon in wrestling with diff icult policy choices. Over the last several decades a number of institutes and organizations have been established at West Virginia University that serve as brokers between its f aculty and practitioners in the public and private sectors. Each is discussed briefly here.

The Bureau of Business Research was founded in 1949 and is located in the College of Business and Economics. Working through contracts and grants, scholars affiliated with the Bureau conduct basic and applied research on

business and economics and consultwith public and private agencies throughout the state and region on management and economic development issues. Over the past several years, Bureau researchers have engaged in research and consulting in a number of areas including international finance, energy development, marketing, accounting, costbenefit analysis, regulation, labor market behavior, and econometric modeling. The Bureau is also home to the Small Business Development Center, a center that provides education, training, and management assistance to prospective small business owners and managers.

Contact: Dr. Tom S. Win, Director Bureau of Business Research West Virginia University P.O. Box 6025 Morgantown, WV 26506-6025 (304) 293-5837

The National Research Center for Coal and Energy (NRCCE) is a research management organization that coordinates the activities of literally dozens of energy- and environmentally-related programs and faculty throughout the university. Its research focuses on fossil fuel extraction, utilization, and market enhancement. Environmental research and knowledge dissemination is conducted through three additional programs -the National Mine Land Reclamation Center, the Water Research Institute, and the National Small Flows Clearinghouse. NRCCE researchers conduct analysis of, among other things, acid mine drainage, clean coal technologies, state energy policy, coal ash disposal and utilization, fluidization, electricity transmission, and environmental policy. It is especially committed to finding ways of transferring scientific knowledge into practical uses. For example, its researchers are currently investigating the use of flyash as a raw material for use in building construction. Other projects have explored the possibility of exporting electricity generated in West Virginia to neighboring states.

Contact: Dr. John Holmgren, Interim Director National Research Center for Coal and Energy West Virginia University P.O. Box 6064 Morgantown, WV 26506-6064 (304) 293-2867

The Institute for Public Affairs was created by the West Virginia legislature to sponsor research on state policy concerns. As part of that effort, the Institute regularly hosts roundtable discussions on key issues facing state and local governments by bringing academicians, practitioners, administrators, and state and local elected officials togetherto share their expertise and to identify potential solutions to policy problems. Recent roundtable discussions have focused on the juvenile justice system, recycling, deer management, property taxes, and state energy policy. Besides this journal, the Institute publishes a monograph and technical report series. Articles and reports have addressed a wide range of issues including taxation, environmental policy, prison reform, and consumer protection. The Institute is located in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Contact: Dr. Robert Dilger, Director Institute for Public Affairs 316 Woodburn Hall West Virginia University Morgantown, WV 26506 (304) 293-5432

The Regional Research Institute conducts scholarly research on the economic and social development of lagging regions, both in the United States and elsewhere. The Institute consists of faculty research associates and student research assistants selected competitively from various departments and colleges throughout the University. It supports faculty research development and provides research and training assistance to faculty and students through an extensive program of workshops, seminars, courses, and conferences. Research associates compete successfully for external grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Forest Service, the Ford Foundation, and elsewhere, Over the past several years, Regional Research Institute scholars have conducted numerous studies that examine economic development strategies in West Virginia, including the construction of a state input-output model and an analysis of the factors influencing the location decisions of manufacturing concerns.

Contact: Dr. Andrew Isserman, Director Regional Research Institute West Virginia University 511 North High Street Morgantown, WV 26506 (304) 293-2896

The Office of Health Services Research (OHSR) is located in West Virginia University's School of Medicine's Department of Community Medicine. Its primary mission is to improve the quality of health care for West Virginians by providing technical assistance, consulting, and applied researchto federal, state, and local heafthoff icials. Overthe past few years, OHSR associates have conducted a wide range of health-related research including an evaluation of the state's first multi-county public health agency, a comprehensive analysis of the state's Medicaid program, an assessmentof a federally funded adolescent pregnancy prevention program, and a survey of small businesses concerning their employee insurance programs. In addition, OHSR provides data management assistance to the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Health Care Cost Review Authority. OHSR research is supported by, among

others, West Virginia's Department of Human Services, the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Robert Wood Foundation, The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the West Virginia Department of Health, the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, and the Governor's Off ice of Community and Industrial Development.

Contact: Mr. Cecil Pollard, Director

Off ice of Health Services Research
Chestnut Ridge Road
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506
(304) 293-2601

West Virginia University,s Cooperative Extension Service employs over 100 county extension faculty throughout the state and has enjoyed a strong collaborative relationship with West Virginia's Department of Agdculture and Division of Forestry for decades. Besides its ongoing 4-H activities and its applied research efforts in forestry and agriculture, the Cooperative Extension Service has recently sponsored research on wastewater treatment needs in rural areas, economic incentives for small businesses, particularly for farm, home, and land-based enterprises, and school dropouts.

Contact: Dr. Rachel Tompkins
Associate Provost
Cooperative Extension Service
817 Knapp Hall
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506
(304) 293-5691

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