March 2014 – Heather E. Lanthorn

further thoughts on phase-in/pipeline designs for causal inference

not long back, i put down my thoughts (here) about pipeline or phase-in designs. my basic premise is that while they may allow for causal inference, it is not clear that they are usually designed to allow generated evidence to be used where it is most relevant — to that program itself. that seems badContinue reading “further thoughts on phase-in/pipeline designs for causal inference”

have evidence, will… um, erm? (3 of 6, relevent reasons)

this is a joint post with suvojit. it is also posted on people, spaces, deliberation. . in our last post, we wrote about factors – evidence and otherwise – influencing decision-making about development programmes. to do so, we have considered the premise of an agency deciding whether to continue or scale a given program afterContinue reading “have evidence, will… um, erm? (3 of 6, relevent reasons)”

west african pirates

i’ve been slow on pirate news. sometimes my google alert for ‘pirate’ brings me good things; most of the time it is about sports teams. in any case, something good came in today. a lieutenant commander in the french navy noted that west africa and the gulf of guinea is a good place to beContinue reading “west african pirates”

losing the “different worlds” talk

this post is an elaboration of my tweet on the nytimes’ op-ed, “the end of the developing world“, by Dayo Olopade. the essay is good and important. imbibe it. here’s a sip: it’s tough to pick a satisfying replacement. talk of first, second and third worlds is passé, and it’s hard to bear the DickensianContinue reading “losing the “different worlds” talk”