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Category: Economics

Published September 6, 2011

“Big Questions, Not Project Evaluations”: Blattman on Impact Evaluation

This week in my development seminar, we will be discussing the background ideas and methods proper to development microeconomics.

In order to do so, and to make sure that everyone has a clear understanding of what’s at stake, I must make a necessary digression about the use of linear regression as well as about the idea of causality in the social sciences.

As such, a recent post on impact evaluation by Chris Blattman turns out to be quite timely:

“My point in 2008: to talk about how impact evaluations could better serve the needs of policymakers, and accelerate learning.

Frankly, the benefits of the simple randomized control trial have been (in my opinion) overestimated. But with the right design and approach, they hold even more potential than has been promised or realized.

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Published September 5, 2011

Can Industrial Policy Save the US Economy? (Updated)

In honor of Labor Day, and because the national unemployment rate stands at a disheartening 9.1 percent, I wanted to discuss this article in last week’s New York Times Magazine:

“Over the last two years, the federal government has doled out nearly $2.5 billion in stimulus dollars to roughly 30 companies involved in advanced battery technology.

For decades, the federal government has generally resisted throwing its weight — and its money — behind particular industries. As the former White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers put it, America’s role is to feed a global economy that’s increasingly based on knowledge and services rather than on making stuff. The conviction in Washington was that manufacturing deserved no special dispensation. Even now, as unemployment ravages the country, so-called industrial policy remains politically toxic.”

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Published September 1, 2011

The Great A&P

“A&P was at the center of a bitter political struggle that lasted for nearly half a century–a struggle that went far beyond economics. At its root were competing visions of society. One vision could be described with such words as ‘modern’ and ‘scientific,’ favoring the rationalism of cold corporate efficiency as a way to increase wealth and raise living standards. The other vision could fairly be termed ‘traditional.’ Dating to Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries, the traditional vision harked back to a society of autonomous farmers, craftsmen, and merchants in which personal independence was the source of individual opportunity and collective prosperity.”

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