Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dear Indian (and other) Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Who Produce Birth Control

One of the greatest behavioral nudges of all time is the week of different-colored placebo pills in a package of birth control to allow you to just keep taking pills and always be on the right schedule. Please adopt this innovation. It cannot alter costs that much. Sincerely, spending too much time scheduling on googleContinueContinue reading “Dear Indian (and other) Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Who Produce Birth Control”

Small Sunday morning thoughts on external validity, Hawthorne effects

*An updated version of this post, in which I try to answer some of my musings below, can be found here. Recently, 1 had the privilege of speaking about external validity at the CLEAR South Asia M&E Roundtable (thank you!), drawing on joint work I am doing with Vegard Iversen on this question of whenContinueContinue reading “Small Sunday morning thoughts on external validity, Hawthorne effects”

“Politically Robust” Experimental Design in Democracies and a Plea For More Experience Sharing

Sometimes I re-read a paper and remember how nice a sentence or paragraph was (especially when thinking that a benevolent or benign dictator might make research so much easier, as though easy was the main goal of research). So it is with the paper by Gary King and colleagues (2007) on “a ‘politically robust’ experimentalContinueContinue reading ““Politically Robust” Experimental Design in Democracies and a Plea For More Experience Sharing”

Buffet of Champions: What Kind Do We Need for Impact Evaluations and Policy?

This post is also cross-posted here and here. I realize that the thesis of “we may need a new kind of champion” sounds like a rather anemic pitch for Guardians of the Galaxy. Moreover, it may lead to inflated hopes that i am going to propose that dance-offs be used more often to decide policyContinueContinue reading “Buffet of Champions: What Kind Do We Need for Impact Evaluations and Policy?”

That may not mean quite what you think it means: John Henry and Americana edition

Occasionally on this site, I try to provide some background on phrases and cliches in social science and global health (such as here and here). It is a small public service to help folks not be Sicilians yelling “inconceivable!” (or from starting land wars in Asia, if at all possible). Today, the John henry Effect.ContinueContinue reading “That may not mean quite what you think it means: John Henry and Americana edition”

Things I have been told about my writing and presentation style in the recent(-ish) past

Just a small collection of not-really compliments: 1. You talk fast but it seems to work for you  -Steve Folmar 2. You use small words but it seems to work for you  -Derrick Matthews 3. You use run-on sentences but it seems to work for you  -Pop

Doing research? Spend more time with program staff…

Originally posted on Suvojit Chattopadhyay:
From Duncan’s blog covering the paper ‘Using Participatory Process Evaluation to Understand the Dynamics of Change in a Nutrition Education Programme’, by Andrea Cornwall While it is always interesting to hear about interesting approaches to data collection and analysis – and a lot of this feeds into thoughts/reactions I had while…

Small thoughts on transparency in research (descriptions of methods, analysis)

There is currently a good deal of attention on transparency of social science research – as there should be. Much of this is focused on keeping the analysis honest, including pre-analysis plans (e.g.) and opening up data for re-analysis (internal replication, e.g. here and here). Some of this will hopefully receive good discussion at anContinueContinue reading “Small thoughts on transparency in research (descriptions of methods, analysis)”

To Get More Out of Science, Show the Rejected Research

Originally posted on Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences:
CARL WIENS In a recent opinion piece on the New York Times news portal the Upshot, Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College, comments on a host of transparency related issues. Closely echoing the mission of BITSS, Nyhan identifies the potential of…