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The article focuses on the relevance of Karl R. Popper to the evaluation community. Donald T. Campbell and Charles E. Lindblom are used as prisms through which Popper becomes visible to evaluators. The two authors hold different positions with regard to the theory of knowledge and to the use of evaluation. How can both be associated with Popper? The article presents references to Popper from these and other authors within evaluation. The relevance of Popper to evaluation is visible in relation to the issue of evaluative knowledge, the use of evaluation and unintended consequences of interventions.

Past literature has identified several putative precursors of use, as well as alternative forms of use. However, important shortcomings still exist in previous work on use. In particular, inadequate attention has been given to the underlying processes that may mediate the effects of evaluation on attitude and action. In essence, a key part of the theory of change for evaluation itself is missing. To help fill this gap, we describe a framework designed to capture key mechanisms through which evaluation may have its effects. The framework includes change processes that have been validated in various social science literatures. It identifies three levels of analysis (individual, interpersonal and collective), each with four kinds of processes (general influence, attitudinal, motivational and behavioral). With a more comprehensive view of the mechanisms underlying evaluation's influence, the field can move forward in relation to its understanding and facilitation of evaluation's role in the service of social betterment.

Programme evaluation has become a widely applied mode of systematic inquiry for making judgements about public policies. Although evaluation, as a form of systematic inquiry, has provided feedback information for policy makers, it still too often produces banal answers to complex and multi-dimensional societal problems. In this article, we take a close look at the ontological premises, conceptions of causality, and relationships to rational theories of action of different programme evaluation paradigms. There is a paradigm crisis in evaluation resulting from differences over assumptions about causality. Evaluation paradigms clearly provide research strategies, but more particularly they map causal links in contrasting ways. Traditional cause-and-effect logic disregards the fact that programme effects are always brought about by real actors rather than constructed ideal actors. A new interpretation of causes and effects is needed, which would strengthen the core ideas that lie behind the now widely applied and consolidated realistic evaluation tradition.

Originated in the 1970s, decried in the 1990s, theory-based evaluation recaptured debate at the European Evaluation Society conference in 2002. The promise is that the set-up, implementation, delivery and utilization of evaluation research may be facilitated by taking the assumptions and objectives of public policy as a starting point. In addition, a theory-based approach is considered to be valuable for a government that wants to learn, whilst potentially reconciling positivist and constructivist approaches. This article explores the rationale for a theory-based approach in policy development, debate, learning and evaluation utilization. It does so by confronting the–often paradoxical–dilemmas that haunt every evaluator (and policy maker). How can we do justice to societal complexity yet still maintain focus? How can we enter apparently closed policy systems? And how do we find a balance between mere improvement and innovative learning?

Theory-based evaluations have helped open the 'black box' of programmes. An account is offered of the evolution of this persuasion, through the works of Chen and Rossi, Weiss, and Pawson and Tilley. In the same way as the 'theory of change' approach to evaluation has tackled the complexity of integrated and comprehensive programmes at the community level, it is suggested that a theory-oriented approach based on the practice of realistic cumulation be developed for dealing with the vertical complexity ofmulti-level governance.

This paper presents an overview of recent trends in U.S. earnings inequality with a focus on gender differences. Data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses are used. Earnings and per capita household income inequality measures have risen from 1980 to 2000, both overall and among women and men separately. Theil index decompositions illustrate that within-gender inequality is rising. Simulations that treat women "more like men" in the labor market raise women's earnings relative to men but also have the effect of increasing within-gender inequality for women.

Using data from the Current Population Survey, we examine recent trends in the relative economic status of black men. Our findings point to gains in the relative wages of black men (compared to whites) during the 1990s, especially among younger workers. In 1989, the average black male worker (experienced or not) earned about 69% as much per week as the average white male worker. In 2001, the average younger black worker was earning about 86% as much as an equally experienced white male; black males at all experience levels earned 72% as much as the average white in 2001. Greater occupational diversity and a reduction in unobserved skill differences and/or labor market discrimination explain much of the trend. For both younger and older workers, general wage inequality tempered the rate of wage convergence between blacks and whites during the 1990s, although the effects were less pronounced than during the 1980s.

We examine the effect of job displacement on changes in the wage structure using nonparametric estimation methods. We argue that job displacement is a plausible mechanism that transmits causes such as skill-biased technological change or deindustrialization to changes in the wage structure. Employing a combination of data from the January and Outgoing Rotation Groups of the Current Population Survey, we compare the distribution of earnings prior to and after worker displacement. Although the conventional wisdom argues for a strong connection between worker displacement and changes in the wage structure, we find limited effects of displacement on the wage distribution.

This paper documents changing patterns in employment-based health insurance and pension benefits among private-sector wage and salary workers between 1987 and 2001 and examines the trends by workforce characteristics. The results show that benefit differentials across educational groups increased in terms of both accessibility and participation rates during this period. The differential in pension accessibility and health insurance coverage rose primarily prior to 1993, whereas the differential in pension participation expanded consistently throughout the period. Using decomposition methods, we evaluate the importance of shifts in the relative employment distribution and changes in unobserved differences in explaining these trends.