Sunday, January 18, 2009

On lentils, randomized controlled trial techniques and development economics

Was checking these out this morning and thought to share them with you:

1. A Forbes article on 'controlled trial techniques': Trial and Error

2. 'Improving immunisation coverage in rural India: A clustered randomised controlled evaluation of immunisation campaigns with and without incentives': Methodology (what I promised to find for you in class the other day)

3. 'One reason anti-poverty policy has not worked better than it has is because we went into it naively, without enough of an understanding of what makes it hard.' Read the paper by Abhijit V. Banerjee 'Why fighting povery is hard' to realize the types of problems faced when trying to deal with this issue.

4. Read this interview of Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee where poverty interventions they view as consistently effective are discussed.

5. On microfinance this and this.

...and quoting from the interview (#4 above):
PA: On that point specifically, what would you say is the biggest wrong belief currently present in development circles?

ED: The biggest wrong belief is that there is a magic bullet and I can find it.

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