By: Lucas Figal Garone Academia, general public and governments seem to understand inequality differently. While many in academia and in the public sector focus on the measurement of the distribution of certain outcomes – e.g. income or total consumption –, in the real world, people seem to care about opportunity: that all individuals have the same opportunities to … [Read more...] about Inequality of opportunity: an emerging body of literature
What is different about development assistance? A simple show of words…
A prevailing element of discussion leading to a consensus document at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea was how to bring China, Brazil and India into the post-Busan process. Throughout the meeting, the reality of the new development architecture was showcased. That is, traditional donors are still mired in a financial crisis that has restricted … [Read more...] about What is different about development assistance? A simple show of words…
Cement is good
I just finished reading a fascinating paper on the social impact of urban street paving in Mexico by Marco Gonzalez and Climent Quintana. A previous version of this paper had been presented at the Impact conference in Cuernavaca back in June 2011. It turns out that street paving – mostly with cement - has a significant impact on property values (+43%), land values (+54%) … [Read more...] about Cement is good
Learning from failure
Failing is embarrassing and inevitable. It is for that reason that is very refreshing to find organizations that want to learn from failure, where failure is recognized and built upon, like the Canadian NGO Engineers Without Borders, led by David Damberger, and which produces an Annual Failure Report. A good reason for the flourishing of Impact Evaluations is the … [Read more...] about Learning from failure
In search of the lost data
An objection I usually hear when discussing with practitioners about using rigorous impact evaluation techniques is “…but these evaluations cost a lot of money”. I always answer that the cost of an evaluation does not depend on the method, but mainly on whether or not you need to collect primary data (I was glad to hear Paul Gertler responding in the same way during a recent … [Read more...] about In search of the lost data