Comments on: Impact Evaluation 2.0

By: The Myth of Microfinance? Why MFIs Shouldnâ€™t Be Freaking Out (Yet) | Jenny Aker | Global Development: Views from the Center

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:08:45 +0000

[...] as it evolves — using RCTs where feasible, and other rigorous evaluation methods when not (as Chris Blattman, Dani Rodrik and many others have [...]

By: Najim

Najim — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:43:00 +0000

I understand it is almost a year since you posted this, but I happened to read it just now and wanted to share a few comments.

- I especially liked your focus on the value of qualitative evaluation and the focus of Impact Evaluation 2.0 on processes and management rather than different interventions altogether.

- However, you also argued that Impact Evaluation 2.0 focuses on understanding causal relationships, as opposed to IE 1.0 does not?

- Secondly, in your example of changing different components of micro finance, how different is it form conventional IE 1.0? Does the 1.0 version not include such programs?

Thanks,

najim

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:23:00 +0000

I strongly agree with your comments on evaluation and the limitations of randomised experiments. Yes, they provide good information but, No they have serious limitations. This is the case (a) for interpretation and (b) in trying to use the results form them as the basis for-large-scale non-experiments and for generalisation. Labour economics has gone through this debate since the 1980s.

Also, conventional methods of evaluation can be extended to try and provide a explanatory narrative to link policy interventions with outcomes.

For a recent example concerning the impact on outcomes of infrastructure regulators (e.g. in electricity/energy & telecoms) , see Brown, Stern and Tenenbaum “Handbook for Evaluating Infrastructure Regulatory Systems”, World Bank 2006. This – and related work – suggests using analytical narratives, ie carefully structured comparative case studies.