Do the Bank’s Operational Staff Support the Bank’s Research Department?
The quality of development projects depends in part on how well grounded project preparation is in knowledge about what works and what does not. Development practitioners need to be well informed if...
View ArticleCan we trust shoestring evaluations?
There is much demand from practitioners for “shoestring methods” of impact evaluation—sometimes called “quick and dirty methods.” These methods try to bypass some costly element in the typical impact...
View ArticleContradictions in Global Poverty Numbers?
In an article on a Brookings website, Laurence Chandy and Homi Kharas chide the World Bank for three so-called “contradictions” in its global poverty numbers, including the Bank’s latest update. Let...
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Politically-filtered views on progress against poverty
Like all fields of socio-economic measurement, there is scope for debate on how best to assess development progress. There is often much to be learnt from such debate.But the debates are not always...
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Monitoring Inequality
Inequality is getting more attention in efforts to monitor development progress. Alongside established measures of poverty and human development there have been calls for monitoring inequality. How...
View ArticleRecognizing and rewarding the best development professionals
This blog post is co-authored with Mead Over at the Center for Global Development and is also posted at the CGD blog. The comments of Phil Keefer, David McKenzie, Michael Toman, Berk Ozler, Dominique...
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Should we care equally about poor people wherever they may live?
Not so long ago, those countries designated as “low-income countries” (LICs) in the World Bank’s World Development Indicators accounted for the bulk of the world’s poor, such as by the $1.25 a day...
View ArticleTwo Goals for Fighting Poverty
It is widely agreed that eliminating extreme poverty in the world should take priority in thinking about our development goals going forward. The '$1 a day' poverty line is a simple metric for...
View ArticleIs it just a matter of teaching poor people their rights? An information...
It is often the case that poor people do not fully access the public services due to them. Information-based interventions have been proposed as a response. The premise is that lack of information is a...
View ArticleTaking Ethical Validity Seriously
More thought has been given to the validity of the conclusions drawn from development impact evaluations than to the ethical validity of how the evaluations were done. This is not an issue for all...
View ArticleThe World Bank: Why it is still needed and why it still disappoints
The decade or two after WW2 saw many of the world’s poorest countries gain their independence from Colonial rule, and they were hoping to rapidly become less poor. Economics taught policy makers in...
View ArticleSocial Frictions to Knowledge Sharing in India
There seems to be much enthusiasm today for efforts to improve access to information about poor people’s rights and entitlements. In a much debated recent example, Facebook’s “Free Basics” platform...
View ArticleDevelopment impact calls for knowledgeable development practitioners
These days we talk a lot about how best to assess development impact through evaluative research. Sound data and methods are essential. Here there has been considerable progress over the last 20 years...
View ArticleDo our development practitioners have an incentive to learn? And do they learn?
It is well recognized that the stock of knowledge among development practitioners matters to development impact. How then do the operational staff of the largest international development agency value...
View ArticleDo the Bank’s Operational Staff Support the Bank’s Research Department?
The quality of development projects depends in part on how well grounded project preparation is in knowledge about what works and what does not. Development practitioners need to be well informed if...
View ArticleCan we trust shoestring evaluations?
There is much demand from practitioners for “shoestring methods” of impact evaluation—sometimes called “quick and dirty methods.” These methods try to bypass some costly element in the typical impact...
View ArticlePathways to Prosperity: An e-Symposium
Blog #6: India, the driver of growth for Bharat India is home to the largest number of poor people in the world, as well as the largest number of people who have recently escaped poverty. Over the...
View ArticleDevelopment impact calls for knowledgeable development practitioners
These days we talk a lot about how best to assess development impact through evaluative research. Sound data and methods are essential. Here there has been considerable progress over the last 20 years...
View ArticleDo our development practitioners have an incentive to learn? And do they learn?
It is well recognized that the stock of knowledge among development practitioners matters to development impact. How then do the operational staff of the largest international development agency value...
View ArticleDo the Bank’s Operational Staff Support the Bank’s Research Department?
The quality of development projects depends in part on how well grounded project preparation is in knowledge about what works and what does not. Development practitioners need to be well informed if...
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