Summarizes ongoing economic impact assessment activities at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for its Measurement and Standards Laboratory Program. Explores designing economic impact studies for integration into assessments of broader programmatic objectives. (SLD)

This paper discusses social and organizational differences between client-focused, volunteer-staffed programs and comparable paid-personnel programs. Particular attention is given to the effects of these differences on three aspects of the evaluation process: initiation of the evaluation, need for process evaluation, and utilization of evaluation…