It pays to be ignorant: A simple political economy of rigorous program evaluation

By L. Pritchett. 2002

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management Science and Operations Research, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/442d6093717d8e884f90d01daf986c3b97fdfbf0

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Esther Duflo
2. Dean S. Karlan
3. Maren Duvendack
4. J. Copestake
5. R. Palmer-jones
6. L. Hooper
7. Y. Loke
8. N. Rao

In Management Science and Operations Research

1. Matt Andrews
2. Esther Duflo
3. Margaret E. Grosh
4. C. Ninno
5. E. Tesliuc
6. A. Ouerghi
7. J. Copestake
8. Daniel H. Wood

In Political Science and International Relations

1. Esther Duflo
2. Margaret E. Grosh
3. C. Ninno
4. E. Tesliuc
5. A. Ouerghi
6. J. Copestake
7. Daniel H. Wood
8. Dean S. Karlan

Citations in the corpus

• Foreign Aid and Inclusive Development: Updated Evidence from Africa, 2005-2012 (2017, unknown): “These include, among others: the experiment on ending poverty by Sachs; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS); the cost effectiveness of interventions (Banerjee & He, 2008); the imperative for more rigorous evaluation (Pritchett, 2008); Randomised Cont”
• Scaling Up and Evaluation (2003, background): “Pritchett (2002) argues that program advocates systematically mislead swing voters into believing exaggerated estimates of program impacts.”
• For Protection and Promotion: The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets (2008, methodology): “Most of the modeling work focuses on models in which voters determine the program budget, and voters’ interest in funding a program relates to their likely direct benefits from the program (Gelbach and Pritchett 2002; Pritchett 2005).”
• Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action (2017, background): “When organizations are competing for internal and external legitimacy it is possible that “it pays to be ignorant” (Pritchett 2002)—that is, it can be better to limit availability of evidence by examination of performance in order to more effectively transmit confirmatory signals that all is well.”
• Site Selection Bias in Program Evaluation (2015, unknown): “Pritchett (2002) shows how such incentives could lead to an equivalent of site 6All of Opower’s first ten sites had fee-for-service contracts without performance incentives.”
• The effect of effectiveness: Donor response to aid effectiveness in a direct mail fundraising experiment (2017, background): “Organizations that believe donors will not respond favorably may underinvestment in impact assessment ( Pritchett 2002 ).”
• Systematic Review. What is the evidence of the impact of microfinance on the well-being of poor people? (2011, background): “Hence, Pritchett (2002) argues that it is not surprising that there are so few rigorous impact studies. Not only is that a phenomenon in the area of microfinance, but also health and education interventions are met with the same fate. Pritchett (2002) concluded that programmes usually have few incen”
• Reinventing Foreign Aid for Inclusive and Sustainable Development: Kuznets, Piketty and the Great Policy Reversal (2016, unknown): “…; cost effective interventions (Banerjee & He, 2008) 17 ; Randomised Control Trials (RCTs, Duflo & Kremer, 2008) 18 ; need for rigorous evaluation (Pritchett, 2008) 19 ; reforms based on intensification, amputation and policy changes (Pritchett & Woolcook, 11 Collier sustains that foreign aid…”
• Driving innovation: Public policy and human capital (2019, background): “As a result, many organizations turn to consulting firms that may have the requisite expertise, but that also have a vested interest in promoting and selling the particular products and services their firm offers (Block, 2013; Pritchett, 2002).”