A management agency --such as a publicly or privately owned electric
utility -- must, if it is to be efficient in carrying out its day-to-day
tasks, have a means of monitoring its performance to assess the
efficiency of its operations and the effectiveness of its planning. For
example, how did the demand for electricity compare with that assumed in
planning? How effective were the incentives applied to induce energy
conservation by users? Such ex post analyses are essential for improving
the planning process and hence for improving decisions with respect to
efficiency and resource allocation. Unfortunately, it seems to be very
difficult for public agencies to make such ex post evaluations an
integral part of agency activities, whether the agencies are
"producers," e. g., the Corps of Engineers or the Bureau of Reclamation
with respect to water resources management, or are regulatory agencies
such as the Environmental Protection Agency or the Food and Drug
Administration. Here and there a few ex post analyses of agency programs
have been done, but rarely by the responsible agency itself. These
analyses have attempted to compare the results actually achieved with
the results estimated in planning, either in terms of project outputs or
in terms of effectiveness of regulatory and/or economic incentives in
inducing desired changes in behavior.