Tag Archives: news

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth reading the article about star economist Roland Fryer’s sexual harassment. Here’s his response. At issue here is how easily academic structures put junior people at the mercy of senior ones. It’s not unique to economics – see psychology Antarctic geology, and the world’s top empathy researcher terrorizing the people who worked in her lab, among many others. Given how common we’re discovering this...

Thanksgiving edition, by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action Image via FlickrTo make your cooking or holiday travel go a little faster IPA has our 2018 Great Holiday Travel Podcast Playlist up!Also if you’re killing time, read the abstracts from Jennifer Doleac’s thread of job market papers from women job candidates. I’m just going to drop you into the long thread here, at this dramatic paper from Jagori Saha showing how social protection programs in times of drought can save...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. David McKenzie’s great (as always) links has a nice short summary on new thinking from big names in Universal Basic Income making the argument that the effort to target cash to the neediest and the precision required aren’t worth it, and it should be universal.Seven current and former graduate students at Dartmouth’s prestigious psychology and neuroscience department have filed a class action suit against the College. They allege...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. At IPA even our water spills our normally distributed (or Halloween-themed, depending on your perspective)David McKenzie has updated an amazing list of all of the Development Impact Blog’s methodology posts, categorized by topic.A reminder for the academic interview fly-out season that I’ve seen a few people mention: don’t assume grad students can afford to put travel on their credit cards and wait to be reimbursed; offer to book...

Fertility for Income around the world, from Lyman StoneA new report (if you can ignore the overblown headline) looks at the massive Millennium Villages project, promoted by economist Jeffrey Sachs. It spent a *lot* in Ghana (a budget of $27 Million from a variety of sources, including local government and communities) on economic makeovers of selected locales, but did not have an overall effect on poverty, hunger, or many of the other outcomes it set out to improve. Full report here.The...

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...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action This weekend I’m planning on reading this crazy-looking story about the Ocean’s 11 team that tricked the government of Angola into sending $500 Million to an accountant’s front office in London and how they were caught (h/t Ken Opalo)

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. I’ve been really enjoying the Vox and IRC collaboration podcast Displaced (Apple). Some highlights for me were Rachel Glennerster (who had an amazing response to the Guardian op-ed on RCTs), Alix Zwane, Owen Barder, and Stefan Dercon. I think I pinpointed one reason it feels so informative – the hosts have clearly read up on the topic, and the way they ask questions gives you all the background you need to get right into a really...

Labor Economist Mary Daly (above) is the incoming President and CEO of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. She has a pretty unconventional background (if I remember, she dropped out of high school). You can hear her explain the whole story and how she got interested in economics on the St. Louis Fed Women in Economics podcast. (Apple).Brookings has a fellowship for researchers or NGO leaders from developing countries (particularly Francophone West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Pacific...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Field researchers in Uganda strategize before going out to track down cash grant recipients nine years laterIt’s been a big week for cash, with two studies out on cash transfers based on data from my IPA colleagues:Craig McIntosh and Andy Zeitlin worked with IPA, USAID, Catholic Relief Services, and GiveDirectly in Rwanda to compare a standard WASH (water/sanitation/hygiene) and nutrition program to cash. You can read the...