Before Performance Measurement

Abstract

This paper examines the conditions preceding and concurrent with the origin of performance measurement in the early 1900s. It links performance measurement to political reform and reassertion of executive governance. The nineteenth century saw significant advances in empiricism, the development of statistics and the differentiation of the social sciences, all of which contributed to a suitable environment for the innovation of performance measurement. In the late 1800s, developments such as the social survey, municipal statistics and modern cost accounting paved the way for the New York Bureau of Municipal Research to introduce modern empiricism into political science. That introduction was in the form of performance measurement.