By: Raquel Mayer and Juanita Riaño, Office of Institutional Integrity, Inter-American Development Bank A few days ago we were reminded on this blog of an idea to reduce the incidence of bribery proposed last year by Kaushik Basu, then India’s Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and, and since last month, the World Banks’ Chief Economist. Dr. Basu argued … [Read more...] about Seven reasons why it would not be a good idea to legalize bribe-paying
Cement is good (for politicians too)
Almost a year ago, we published a blog on the results of an innovative experiment that estimated the impact of paving streets in Mexico on property and land values, credit or use of durable goods. Cement was good. Now the authors (Marco Gonzalez-Navarro and Climent Quintana-Domeque) are circulating a working paper on the impact of street pavement on electoral support. … [Read more...] about Cement is good (for politicians too)
Do policy briefs work?
The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in collaboration with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation just published a rigorous assessment - based on an randomized control design- that tries answer the question: Do policy briefs affect readers’ beliefs? The answers turn out to be not that … [Read more...] about Do policy briefs work?
Cable cars, reading glasses for kids, and other random Monday links
The must read for this week: the 2013 World Bank Development Report on jobs is out today. What will OXFAM say?. Unexpected partners in crime: A randomized experiment just published in the American Journal of Epidemiology shows (gated) that the introduction of Metrocable in Medellin- a new cable-propelled transit system - show that interventions in neighborhood physical … [Read more...] about Cable cars, reading glasses for kids, and other random Monday links
A must, must read
James Heckman just published a must, must read on the critical importance of early childhood development. This is the first sentence. The accident of birth is a principal source of inequality in America today. And this is the last paragraph … [Read more...] about A must, must read