What Works in Development?: Thinking Big and Thinking Small

by Jessica Cohen (Editor)

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What Works in Development? brings together leading experts to address one of the most basic yet vexing issues in what do we really know about what works— and what doesn't—in fighting global poverty? The contributors, including many of the world's most respected economic development analysts, focus on the ongoing debate over which paths to development truly maximize results. Should we emphasize a big-picture approach—focusing on the role of institutions, macroeconomic policies, growth strategies, and other country-level factors? Or is a more grassroots approach the way to go, with the focus on particular microeconomic interventions such as conditional cash transfers, bed nets, and other microlevel improvements in service delivery on the ground? The book attempts to find a consensus on which approach is likely to be more effective. Contributors include Nana Ashraf (Harvard Business School), Abhijit Banerjee (MIT), Nancy Birdsall (Center for Global Development), Anne Case (Princeton University), Jessica Cohen (Brookings),William Easterly (NYU and Brookings),Alaka Halla (Innovations for Poverty Action), Ricardo Hausman (Harvard University), Simon Johnson (MIT), Peter Klenow (Stanford University), Michael Kremer (Harvard), Ross Levine (Brown University), Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard), Ben Olken (MIT), Lant Pritchett (Harvard), Martin Ravallion (World Bank), Dani Rodrik (Harvard), Paul Romer (Stanford University), and DavidWeil (Brown).
"

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, International Development

257 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Daniel Mason-D'croz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like a discussion board. Each chapter is started with an article reviewing an area of development thought followed by commentaries and critiques of other development economists. The structure of the book is novel, and makes for a nuanced read, as each article is expanded by the insightful commentaries that follow. However, the tittle of this book is very misleading. At no point in time did I come away with a sense that any of the authors that contributed to this work have a strong grasp on what works in development. In the end this book comes to the realistic if unsatisfying conclusion that we still don't know nearly enough about development to make any clear statements on what does or doesn't work. Development is highly location specific, and that it is unlikely that we will be able to make any sweeping statements on development in the near future.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of academic essays on the value of observational studies vs. randomized evaluations (basically randomized controlled trials) for changing developmental policy. The authors include many Boston area academics. The writing can be a bit dense at times, and, on occasion, it seems to be mocking academic writing style.

One eloquent framing of the debate was that all research is trying to do, as it pertains to influencing policy, is to change the beliefs about prior probability of the success of a policy. The book is worth reading if you are specifically interested in this area, but its not for a casual read.

[Slawa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a great read about the pros and cons of randomized controlled trials in development. Many authors contributed pieces and I very much enjoyed the format of the response by two different academics to each piece so that the book was really a debate. A little bit repetitive at times, especially when it came to external validity (generazability) of a study, which you're a bit head over the head with. However, I especially enjoyed the articles by Ricardo Hausmann and Abhijit Banerjee about the larger questions of micro vs macroeconomics of development and the interplay between them.

[Apurav Yash Bhatiya · Rating 5 out of 5]

for an economist, it is a better one than Poor Economics.