About a year and a half ago, the economist Kaushik Basu - then a Cornell professor on leave as Chief Economist for the Ministry of Finance in India- proposed legalizing some forms of bribing. Some highlights: There are different kinds of bribes and what I am concerned with in this paper are bribes that people often have to give to get what they are legally entitled to. I … [Read more...] about Legal bribes?
5 reasons why to take a vacation
Now that most of the northern hemisphere is on vacation, most are watching the Olympic Games, and the World Bank Impact blog is in hiatus, I thought we should take a break too. But before we do that, it is good to know that taking a break can be good. These are just five reasons (Hint: happiness and productivity are two of them) … [Read more...] about 5 reasons why to take a vacation
2 additional examples of strategic ignorance
In a previous previous blog, I explored the positive impact of impact evaluations and impact evaluation institutional frameworks have had on policy formulation. And in a previous blog, I discussed two examples of areas where one would hope that investments and policy reflect the evidence, but do not: migration and investing in young males in urban areas. Two … [Read more...] about 2 additional examples of strategic ignorance
4 examples of strategic ignorance – Part 1
In a previous blog, we explored the positive impact of impact evaluations and impact evaluation institutional frameworks have had on policy formulation. It is hard to imagine the success of Conditional Cash Transfers, early childhood interventions, massive vaccinations or, more recently, deworming (despite the brouhaha) without the ammunition that hard evidence provided … [Read more...] about 4 examples of strategic ignorance – Part 1
3 good examples of the impact of impact evaluations
A few weeks ago, I published a blog post on some of the unsettling implications of this paper that suggested that some interventions lose their punch when done by public agencies. One of the takeaways was the need to “go up the bureaucratic supply chain” as nicely put by Justin Sandefur in a tweet on the post. In other words, the need to jump over the “challenge of … [Read more...] about 3 good examples of the impact of impact evaluations