Published on Development Impact

Weekly links September 20: happiness is the absence of ceiling effects, the econ job market, unbelievable aging, and more…

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Young boxers at the White Collars Boxing Match 2019, taken by Mariajose Silva Vargas

·       On the CGD blog, Rachel Glennerster discusses the role of bridge-builders in global policy reform through her experiences with seeing the Teaching at the Right Level approach scale across countries. “Key among these lessons is that many different actors are needed to make big change happen. This creates a critical role for organizations and people who can bring different groups together through objective, accessible analysis; who can translate across the language of different disciplines; and who can build consensus across agencies.”. She also notes that “In talking to government officials in low- and middle-income countries, I have found it much more effective to discuss a menu of evidence-based approaches (based on systematic reviews and comparative cost-effectiveness analysis) from which ministers and civil servants can choose rather than try and sell one single product.”

·       It’s been a couple of years since there was an economics award at the Ignobel prizes, but this year there is one for Demography, which gets at issues of the unreliability of reported ages, issues with administrative records, and then links to discussion on “blue zones” where people supposedly live very long lives. NPR reports on a couple of the awards including this one “Newman snagged his award for his research showing that data related to some of the longest-lived people on the planet is riddled with errors. “For example, the world’s oldest man has three birthdays, one of which seems to be a deliberate fraud.” he says. “In Japan, 82% of the 100-year-olds turned out to be alive on paper — and dead in reality.””.

·       There appears to be a real uptick in the use by economists of Bluesky as an alternative to Twitter/X. A lot of the journals and professional associations now are posting there, as are many economists from around the world. Aaron Sojourner has this quickstart guide to help you get started. One of the recent innovations is now “Starter Packs” which help collect together a set of accounts on a topic you might want to follow. Here is one for development.  I am posting at @dmckenzie.bsky.social

·       The latest issue of the CSWEP news focuses on the economics job market from both sides, with a particular focus on issues in the post-pandemic job market setting. There is also advice for those seeking clinical and teaching-focused jobs. “it is important for current job candidates to recognize that they must be well-prepared for job interviews in November and December…”

·       A recent Planet Money episode relooks at the question of “Can Money Buy Happiness”, discussing both the idea of adversarial collaborations when researchers find opposing results, as well as the issues that can arise due to using scales with ceiling effects in which there is no room for further improvement – using Yes/No questions for happiness versus scales with more range gives different results.

·       On the 3ie blog, Sebastian Martinez has six tips for communicating null results to partners. E.g.  tell a dynamic story of what happened over time “it can be helpful to show how key indicators evolved over time across treatment and control groups, especially if null results reflect secular trends where outcomes are improving over time, but independently of the intervention”.

·       Funding call: On September 18th, IPA's Peace &Recovery Initiative launched its eighth call for proposals, supporting rigorous impact evaluations and related research to inform policies and programs addressing the prevention of, responses to, and recovery from most forms of social and political violence as well as humanitarian emergencies. Submissions are due November 22, 2024.


David McKenzie

Lead Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank

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