"The audacity of hope: Poverty and aspirations"Galiani, Gertler, and Undurraga's recent article in VoxDev discusses the impact of encouraging unattainable aspirations among poor households on their welfare. Using their recent paper evaluating how housing aspirations of non-beneficiaries change over time, the authors conclude that policies designed to stimulate future-oriented actions simply by raising the aspirations of poor people, without helping to provide them with the external or internal means required to satisfy those aspirations, are likely to fail.
"Is the Regulatory Compact Broken in Sub-Saharan Africa?"Paul Gertler and Catherine Wolfram's recent blog post for the Energy Institute at Haas discusses regulatory compacts in Sub-Saharan Africa. Inspired by recent travels to Tanzania for an energy policy conference hosted by the Energy and Economic Growth program, the post explores the case of TANESCO - Tanzania's local electricity monopoly. Read blog post here.
"The Global Impact of Air Conditioning: Big and Getting Bigger"A blog post in The Conversation discusses Paul Gertler and Lucas Davis' (UC Berkeley) examination of the enormous global potential for air conditioning. Read full paper here.
Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) Hosts Second Annual Conference on Behavioral Health EconomicsThe second annual Behavioral Health Economics Conference was held at UC-Berkeley on October 16th, 2015. Paul Gertler served on the review committee for the event, along with other CEGA affiliated UC Berkeley professors, Will Dow, Dana Carney, Aprajit Mahajan, and Ben Handel. The review committee collectively evaluated applicants and selected speakers. The conference was attended by approximately 70 students and faculty from numerous academic institutions and disciplines. The conference included eight presentations from the fields of economics, health, data science, and psychology. Faculty from Yale, UNC Chapel Hill, MIT, and IFPRI, as well as from UC Berkeley, presented research. Conferences such as these continue to grow intra-university relationships and promote the field of Behavioral Economics.
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Gertler delivers "Every Child Ready, Every Child Learning" keynotePaul Gertler delivered the keynote speech at this year's Every Child Ready, Every Child Learning conference in Auckland, New Zealand March 5-7, 2018. Organized by the World Bank Group’s Education Global Practice, the conference brought together around 200 key stakeholders, including relevant ministries, development partners, researchers, and practitioners to discuss school readiness, early grades learning, and innovative financing.
Now Available: Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook (2nd Edition)The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is now available. The handbook is a comprehensive introduction to impact evaluation for policymakers and development practitioners. The updated version covers the latest techniques for evaluating programs, with expanded case studies. Complementary online instructional material and course are available here.
Prof. Paul Gertler Honored by Erasmus University in RotterdamProf. Paul Gertler received an honorary degree from Rotterdam's Erasmus University in November in recognition of his extensive research in global health care. In a letter announcing the degree, Erasmus cited Gertler’s economic analysis of financial incentives in healthcare that earned him the Juan Jose Bobadilla Medal for Global Health from the Mexican National Institutes of Health in 2013. Gertler was the first economist to win the annual award, which is typically given to medical professionals or epidemiologists. Read full press coverage here.
Paul Gertler delivers PacDev keynoteProfessor Gertler delivered the keynote address at the Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) on March 21st, hosted at University of California, San Diego. PacDev is an annual event with the goal of bringing together graduate students, faculty, and practitioners to present and discuss various issues facing developing economies.
In his address, Gertler focused on technology adoption in development. Highlighting the frequency of adoption failures in development, he stressed the importance of using adaptive trial designs to better understand the impact of new technologies. Gertler argued that, since adaptive trial design mimics the rapid iterative approach typical of engineering, the approach allows evaluators of new technologies to continuously re-align their research, ensuring that the various drivers of outcome change are fully understood. Gertler closed his address with recent examples of advances in measurement technology, such as satellite imagery to measure crop yields and temperature sensors to measure cookstove adoption and usage. |