Conceptual Issues in Developing Return on Investment Estimates of Vocational Rehabilitation Programs

We provide an overview of the basic conceptual issues involved in estimating the return on investment (ROI) of state vocational rehabilitation (VR) programs. Our aim is to highlight some of the key issues in ROI evaluations, especially those associated with estimating the benefits and costs of VR. Finally, we discuss different ways of implementing ROI calculations and suggest that rate of return type analysis is appealing for VR evaluations where there is no widely accepted discount rate.

Keywords: Return on investment (ROI), rate of return (ROR), vocational rehabilitation, benefit-cost analysis, discount rates, alternative evaluation designs, long-run benefits

JEL Classification: C18, H51, J24

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Clapp, Christopher and Pepper, John V. and Schmidt, Robert M. and Stern, Steven N., Conceptual Issues in Developing Return on Investment Estimates of Vocational Rehabilitation Programs (September 1, 2019). The Journal of Rehabilitation Administration, 40(1), 23-34, 2019, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3531261