Skip to content Skip to search Skip to footer
Washington University in St. Louis

Brown School

Center for Social Development

Menu
  • About
  • Areas Of Work
    • Our Projects
  • Experts
    • Core Faculty & Staff
    • Faculty Directors
    • Faculty Associates
    • CSD Research Associates & Assistants
  • Publications
  • Partnerships
    • Grand Challenges for Social Work
    • Sister Centers for Social Development
    • Next Age Institute​: Partnership in Social Innovation
    • Washington University Partnerships
    • Funding Partners
  • Newsroom
    • CSD News
    • Media
    • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Contact
    • Join Our Mailing List
Asset Building Financial Inclusion Report

Resources Used to Produce Individual Development Accounts in the First Two Years of the Experimental Program of the American Dream Demonstration at the Community Action Project of Tulsa County

By CSD • July 1, 2000August 27, 2021

This paper describes an attempt to measure resources used to produce Individual Development Accounts in a program run by the Community Action Project of Tulsa County. The experimental design of the program—participants were selected from applicants at random—aims to inform the overall evaluation in the American Dream Demonstration of whether IDAs are likely to achieve their intended purposes costeffectively. Financial benefit-cost analysis is a key part of this evaluation, and the estimates of resource use in this paper are key inputs to the financial benefit-cost analysis. Financial costs are estimated from the points of view of seven groups of stakeholders: IDA participants, non-participants, the federal government, state and local government, the employees of IDA programs, private donors, and society as a whole. This paper documents estimates of cost from the point of view of society as a whole (about $53,000 for 1998 and about $135,000 for 1999) and acts as template to guide cost-measurement for the rest of the years of the project. Resources consumed (costs) by the experimental program are taken as the stock of resources at the start of the year, minus the stock of resources at the end of the year, minus resource inflows during the year. There is no attempt to measure costs that cannot be valued in financial terms nor to measure benefits of any kind. Thus, this paper is not a financial benefit-cost analysis. Subject to a plethora of caveats, qualifications, and assumptions, the broad result derived here is that participation in the experimental program costs society about $125 per participant-month.

Project: American Dream Policy Demonstration (ADD)

Citation

Schreiner, M. (2000). Resources used to produce Individual Development Accounts in the first two years of the experimental program of the American Dream Demonstration at the Community Action Project of Tulsa County (CSD Report No. 00-37). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Social Development.

View Publication
2000American Dream Policy Demonstration (ADD)Individual Development Account (IDA)Mark Schreiner

Center for Social Development

Washington University in St. Louis

MSC 1196-251-46

One Brookings Drive

St. Louis, MO 63130

314-935-7433

csd@wustl.edu

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flickr

Media Contact

Lissa Johnson
CSD Associate Director
ejohnson@wustl.edu

Join our Mailing List

Center for Social Development

©2023 Washington University in St. Louis