Prof Julian Le Grand Marshall Institute, 5 Lincoln's Inn Fields and Dr Jonathan Roberts Marshall Institute, 5 Lincoln's Inn Fields

This course is compulsory on the Executive MSc in Social Business and Entrepreneurship. This course is not available as an outside option.

Those who want to improve society face three immediate dilemmas – first, what is the public benefit? How can I define, with clarity, my moral purpose? Second, how can I decide between different courses of action in order to pursue the public benefit? And third, how can I know that what I do makes any real contribution to the public benefit? What is the evidence? This innovative course sets out to support students in coming to their own resolutions of these dilemmas.  Its goal is to introduce the concepts and techniques of impact measurement from the perspective of - and through specific examples of interest to – organisational leaders and policymakers and those who intend to commission social business and social enterprise interventions.

A first section challenges students to consider and discuss the nature of the public benefit. It introduces students to different philosophical conceptions of the good, including libertarianism, utilitarianism, Rawls’ theory of justice and Sen’s capabilities approach. It will also discuss whose conception of the good is the more important: the actor or agent, the beneficiary, the government or the wider society.

Our choices of outcomes and impact measures are in turn not neutral, but are infused with moral choices about the definition of the public good. The second (and larger section) of the course introduces students to key concepts and skills in developing and assessing evidence of social impact.  It introduces students to a framework that will enable them to be intelligent commissioners of interventions for the public good and critical assessors of evidence and published research. Concepts to which students will be introduced include the distinction between correlation and causation, the counterfactual, opportunity costs, trade-offs, spill overs and substitution effects. Students will be introduced to techniques through which the effectiveness of social interventions can be evaluated, including randomised experiments, quantitative evaluation of non-experimental data, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses and realistic evaluation approaches; the strengths and weaknesses of these methods are considered. It will also consider the politics of impact measurement.

Ten sessions of three hours each, delivered across one module (teaching block) of two weeks.

Two formative assessments will be provided - a data analysis exercise and a short essay (1,000 words). 

• Barr, N. (2012).  Economics of the Welfare State (5th edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Barry, B.  (1973). The Liberal Theory of  Justice.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press
• Glennerster, R. and Takaarasha, K. (2013).  Running Randomised Evaluations: A Practical Guide.  Princeton: Princeton University Press
• Mill, J.S. (1859/2006).  On Liberty.  London: Penguin
• Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating Capabilities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
• Rawls, J. (1971), A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Take home exam (50%) and case analysis (50%).

Assessment will comprise data analysis exercises (50%) and a take home exam (50%).