Tag Archives: health

  Update on what is known. A lot remains unknown or unclear, especially in the fog of panic. There is also considerable misinformation. The push is on to isolate the disease to prevent pandemic. This creates an impression that the worst is already happening when it is not. The worst case is a mutating virus and as far as is known, this is not happening — yet.  Let's keep this is perspective though. The likelihood of contracting coronavirus is still very low in most places, and the...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. There’s a new evaluation out of the Northern Ghana site of the famous expensive Millennium Villages project most associated with Jeff Sachs. I’m not an expert, but as I understand it, the theory is that an intensive big fix (building new institutions like hospitals and many other things at once) could fix the interdependent problems of poor areas.The thing is that Sachs insisted he knew it would work, and it didn’t need an...

They spend the next 45 minutes arguing about Stata vs. R. (In honor of the new Jack Ryan season) Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Dave Evans offers a short PhD in Michael Kremer’s work, with quick summaries of 100+ of his papers. But being a Nobel-winning researcher is only one of his jobs. He’s founded, or been instrumental in, more than one non-profit, and in USAID DIV. As a friend told me this morning, most people who know him from just one facet of his life...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action Thanks for being patient with the intermittent links schedule over the summer, I expect to have some catch-up ones included over the next weeks. Congrats to Mauricio Romero, Justin Sandefur, and Wayne Sandholtz, on their forthcoming article in American Economic Review, (ungated) on the Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL) program, a public-private partnership testing how a variety of private school operators compared to...

WHO measles surveillance dataGuest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action Thanks for being patient while the links were sleeping, expect some summer disruptions of schedule as wellMeasles cases are up 300% over last year with outbreaks in the U.S., Europe, The Philippines, Myanmar, and several African countries. I heard a PSA that adults vaccinated before a certain period (when the vaccine process changed) might no longer be immune. So I got checked and sure enough I wasn’t,...

Pick up your own 5-HTTLPR gene research summary shirt on etsy.Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action IPA’s looking for a Director of Poverty Measurement. In particular the job involves overseeing the Poverty Probability Index, a short, country-specific tool practitioners use to estimate poverty rates, and developing new non-monetary measures (requires strong quant background). Please share with anybody who might be interested.How the government of Odisha, one of...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action IPA’s Peace and Recovery initiative, led on the academic side by Chris, has an open call for funding. We define peace and recovery pretty broadly:Reducing violence and promoting peaceReducing “fragility” (i.e. fostering state capability and institutions of decision-making)Preventing, coping with, and recovering from crises (focusing on conflict, but also including non-conflict humanitarian crises), It also funds a variety of types...

If you’ve been wondering where Chris has been, all I know is that it seems to involve a Colombian unicornGuest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action First, congratulations to Dave Evans, everybody’s favorite public good generator, on his upcoming move to the Center for Global Development, where he’ll join an impressive bench, including Pam Jakiela, Susannah Hares, and Kristaps Porzingis. (And subscribe to his blog at that link for great book reviews, and other interesting...

Guest Post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action Hope everybody’s off to a great new year, and good luck to all the job candidates interviewing at ASSA. Also, remember from the last links that Ben Casselman, who’s been co-reporting on sexual harassment in economics for the New York Times, is there and happy to meet confidentially with anybody who wants to tell him about their experience. If you’re not on twitter, feel free to email me and I’ll put you in touch with him...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action.  A slight, shy, balding, 49-year-old when the 1980 Nobel was announced, Cronin was relieved when the university sent Larry Arbeiter to his home at 7 a.m. to help him handle the deluge of requests for press interviews. Arbeiter, a writer in the university’s press office, suggested that Cronin satisfy all the interview requests at once by holding a 10 a.m. news conference. ”Oh,” Cronin insisted, ”I can’t do it then. I’ve got a 10...