Chris Blattman

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IPA’s weekly links

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action.

via European Commission ECHO

 

  • The UK Behavioural Insights Team is hiring someone to commercialize behaviorally informed products.
  • Nepal hasn’t yet spent any earthquake relief money. The government was reportedly at a political standstill even before the earthquake, not having been able to write a constitution since the 2006 end of a civil war.
  • Venezuela has offered to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees, after deporting 1,400 Colombians. (One hundred Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela fled there and have been stuck in Colombia awaiting US visas).
  • A new bill in Congress uses reproducibility discussions against science. According to Nature News, The “Secret Science Reform Act of 2015” passed by House Republicans requires EPA regulations to be based on “transparent reproducible science,” when many important studies (such as longitudinal environmental ones) are inherently not reproducible.
  • The NBER studies how rational economists are. A paper reports on consequences of order in which papers are listed in their weekly “new papers” email announcements. To a rational actor, something as trivial as random order shouldn’t matter, but:

We show that despite the randomized list placement, papers that are listed first each week are about 30% more likely to be viewed, downloaded, and cited over the next two years.

(via  Kim S.)

And, name quiz: are Otterbein and Brastius names of Knights of the Round Table or colleges in Ohio? Full quiz here (h/t @TexasInAfrica)

Why We Fight - Book Cover
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