Readings

These are the assigned readings for Professor Pamela Jakiela’s undergraduate course Program Evaluation for International Development. This site is a work-in-progress: I will be adding new readings over the course of the semester.

Textbooks

There are three textbooks for the course:

Impact Evaluation in Practice (required)

Available for free from the World Bank

Running Randomized Evaluations (required)

Available for free on JSTOR (to those with JSTOR access)

Mastering Metrics (optional)

Part 0. Introduction

Module 1: Why Evaluate?

Impact Evaluation in Practice: Chapters 1 and 2

Part I. Identification Strategies

Module 2: Selection Bias and the Experimental Ideal

Mastering Metrics: Chapter 1

Module 3: False Counterfactuals

Impact Evaluation in Practice: Chapter 3

The effect of an integrated multisector model for achieving the Millennium Development Goals and improving child survival in rural sub-Saharan Africa: a non-randomised controlled assessment

Concerns about the Millennium Villages project report

Errors in a paper on the Millennium Villages project

When Does Rigorous Impact Evaluation Make a Difference? The Case of the Millennium Villages

Module 4: Difference-in-Differences (DD I)

Impact Evaluation in Practice: Chapter 6

Module 5: Diff-in-Diff in a Regression Framework (DD II)

Does a ban on informal health providers save lives? Evidence from Malawi

Module 6: Diff-in-Diff in Panel Data (DD III)

Module 7: Two-Way Fixed Effects (DD IV)

Module 8: Treatment-on-the-Treated (IV I)

Module 9: Regression Discontinuity (RD I)

Module 10: RD as IV (RD II)

Part II. Program Evaluation in Practice

Module 11: Power Calculations

Module 12: Random Assignment in Practice

Module 13: Compliance and Attrition

Module 14: Survey Design

Module 15: Adventures in Data Collection

Part III. Galaxy Brain Topics

Module 16: Pre-Analysis Plans

Module 17: The Replication Crisis

Module 18: Criticisms of RCTs

Module 19: Meta-Analysis