Approaches to evaluating effectiveness and efficiency of experiments in public governance

Abstract

The article, prepared on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme, analyzes the current situation with evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of experiments (including experimental legal regimes) in public governance. The article defines the concepts of an experiment in public governance, its effectiveness and efficiency, identifies the key features of such experiments (organization, the presence of a given goal and expected result, novelty, evaluation of the experiment results, limited scale, limited timing, voluntary participation in the experiment, the presence of risks associated with the experiment), and proposes a classification of experiments and experimental legal regimes in public governance (external and internal experiments; experiments requiring special (experimental) legal regimes (closed or open), and implemented within the general legal regime). The suggested methodological approach is based on the integration of the effectiveness and efficiency evaluation into the management cycle of the experiment, which allows making decisions on the expediency of conducting an experiment, continuing its implementation or early termination, and replication of the proven technology (practice) following the results of the experiment based on the results of the ex-ante, ongoing, and ex-post evaluation.