Tag Archives: miscellany

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. The effective altruism careers blog 80,000 Hours argues that support roles within an organization, like in operations or assisting, can have big overall impact by multiplying others’ effectiveness. In that vein, IPA’s hiring a global operations director. We’re also hiring what (IMHO) might be one of the most important and complex jobs in the org, Kenya Country Office Director. It involves managing a staff of 500 across several...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Detecting soldiers registering as new voters in Cambodia from the gender distribution. Take a few minutes to read the latest newsletter from the CSWEP, the AEA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. In particular, the opening harrowing account from economist and law professor Jennifer Bennett Shinall on being sexually assaulted by a more senior colleague on an airplane, and on page 5, the anonymous...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Above: Some lessons from Rachel Glennerster on policy vs. academic research paths Nick Kristof talks with Amanda Glassman at the Center for Global Development about trying to get the world’s attention to alleviation of poverty and suffering. (FYI there are a number of tools that will let you covert youtube videos to audio MP3 to listen to like podcasts). A nice pair of short podcasts with Alice Evans and David Evans (who are...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Preregistration stops medications from working Tyler Cowen interviewed Chris Blattman and in typical Cowen fashion came prepared – I had to slow down my usual podcast playback speed to keep up. Topics Included what Chris learned from his first job at a higher class Canadian KFC, interviewing child soldiers, causes of the Peloponnesian Wars, why he’d rather transfer accountants to poor countries than cash, and how he tries to...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Markus Goldstein reports on a study from India which finds that paying respondents for their time participating might change their responses. There’s a bipartisan bill to create a new U.S. overseas development finance agency. It would combine several private sector-focused functions that currently exist across different agencies, offer higher spending caps, and would be allowed to make equity investments. There’s a long and...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. IPA is offering funding for research on ideas about “Peace and Recovery” very broadly defined – looking to test new ideas for counteracting violence (including state and electoral), helping refugees, recovery from humanitarian crises, or countering extremism, and is accepting proposals from Ph.D. students. (The photo above is from research in a Colombian FARC demobilization camp). Expressions of Interest are due NEXT FRIDAY...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. I wasn’t going to even address the SNAP/Box of canned foods proposal in the news, but thankfully Paul Niehaus and Michael Faye of cash transfer fame did it well. As always, when it comes to international development, even cash advocates say that some conditions need to be right. See this conversation with Berk Ozler, Seema Jayachandran, and Andrew Zeitlin for some reminders – markets need to function well so people can get when...

Guest Post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Above, Tim Harfords postcard rules for reading statistics (gated), inspired by Harold Pollack’s personal finance rules index card. ER docs seem to use mental heuristics – patients are more likely to get tested for and diagnosed with a heart attack if they go right after their 40th birthday than right before (job market paper from Stephen Coussens). Dick Thaler’s Nobel Prize-winning Mental Accounting paper was originally rejected...

One of the things Chris is up to these days is being the academic lead for the new Peace and Recovery Initiative at IPA, which is looking to fund research about fragile states, repression, reducing crime and violence, and recovery from humanitarian disasters. Deadline for proposals is March 2 (that’s one short month), and please share with colleagues. But even for general interest reading, I recommend this “guiding principles” document, which is also a very readable summary of what Chris...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Balding and bespectacled, with an unmistakable New York accent, Thomas has spent more than 30 years in the foreign service, serving in U.S. missions from Nigeria to India to the Philippines — but nowhere was he treated quite like this. “My staff and I are called names that the Ku Klux Klan doesn’t even use anymore,” he said. (* disclaimer: I don’t know anything about him or the Cape Town water & behavior project, but it...