In an effort to shed some light on the effectiveness of government-owned development Banks, the Institutions for Development Sector (IDS) at the IDB financed two studies on the impact of Bancoldex, the second-tier public development Bank in Colombia. The two studies, which I co-authored with Marcela Meléndez and Marcela Eslava, evaluate the effect of Bancoldex on both firm … [Read more...] about Second-tier development banks: some evidence from Colombia
Is religion good for health and education?
It’s Easter, or as the Uruguayans call it, “tourism week”. So let us talk about religion and development. The immense majority of the world’s population is religious and believes that religion is important. According to the World Values Survey, 70% of the world’s population considers them-selves a “religious person”. In almost all of the developing countries that participate … [Read more...] about Is religion good for health and education?
Randomized Control Trials on a Budget
A few weeks ago, Martin Ravallion wrote a great blog on “shoe-string” evaluations, in which he suggested that there are ways of bypassing two of the most costly items in rigorous Impact Evaluations: contemporaneous credible baseline data; and second, “objectively assessed outcome indicators”, which are based on surveys. Ravallion then proposed a “shoestring” solution that … [Read more...] about Randomized Control Trials on a Budget
What Works in Development?
Given the importance that institutionalization of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacities is assuming in the Region, on Thursday March 15 at the IDB Annual Meeting we organized jointly with IDRC the seminar “What works in development? Impact evaluation for the design and implementation of public policies.” The seminar was a very stimulating opportunity to generate a high … [Read more...] about What Works in Development?
Development Effectiveness Overview 2011
On March 15th during IDB’s Annual Meeting in Montevideo, we launched the third edition of the Development Effectiveness Overview. As in previous years the DEO is divided in two parts: (i) Accountability: where we the effectiveness of our work (at all stages and in all products) is measured, monitored and reported. (ii) Learning: where we report on what the Bank is … [Read more...] about Development Effectiveness Overview 2011