Designing an impact evaluation that is rigorous, feasible and relevant can be a challenging but rewarding experience. Political, technical, and operational criteria that at first might seem incompatible must be reconciled and made to work in unison. The good news is that there is often a way around these seemingly competing criteria, and a growing number of high-quality impact … [Read more...] about What you need to design an impact evaluation
Bibiana Taboada
Bibiana Taboada was a former Economics Specialist at the Office of Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness at the Inter-American Development Bank.
How can experiments teach us more?
Let’s suppose that we wanted to evaluate the broken windows policing theory developed by Kelling and Wilson (1982) and so widely implemented in New York City in the last few decades. Broken windows policing is based on the idea that enforcement of minor crimes should lead to a decrease in the realization of more serious crimes. The argument is that neighborhood disorder and … [Read more...] about How can experiments teach us more?
Applying impact assessments to non-traditional lending areas
When it comes to finding out what works and what doesn’t work in development, it is worth noting the efforts made by the Inter-American Development Bank to measure the effectiveness of its projects. Over the past three years, the Bank has managed to significantly increase the number of projects that incorporate rigorous impact assessments based on experimental and … [Read more...] about Applying impact assessments to non-traditional lending areas