Commentary: Peering Inside the Black Box of Policy Interventions

The New Hope evaluation generated a variety of useful findings that will help guide future iterations of antipoverty policymaking, despite the fact that the intervention was only selectively effective and impacts were generally short lived. The evaluation process itself, however, representing a blend of sound design, mixed methods, and theories drawn from psychological anthropology as well as other disciplines, is likely to significantly shape future large-scale policy evaluation efforts.