Most of the material available on impact evaluation resides in technical papers with very limited readership. Some “interesting” results get exposure in widely read sites such as Freakonomics and then are amplified by public radio stations across the US. In the past year some great books have come out that aim to provide more accessible accounts of impact evaluation such as … [Read more...] about Spreading the news: Impact evaluation on video
paul gertler
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
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