14.74  Foundations: Economic Development

Due to popular demand, I will have office hours tomorrow (Monday) from 9:00 to 10:00 am in E60-256.  I will be happy to answer questions relating to previous exams, or about the class in general.  There are no solutions to the previous exams.

Dan

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab is looking for several UROPs beginning in IAP or Spring Semester.

The Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL) works to improve the effectiveness of poverty programs in developing countries by running randomized evaluations to generate rigorous evidence about what works. J-PAL’s randomized trials evaluate programs addressing problems central to development, covering areas as diverse as education, health, child marriage, building trust in post-conflict societies, and anti-corruption strategies.

Minimum commitment required: J-PAL requires a 2 term commitment for new hires (either IAP & Spring Spring & Summer, or Spring & Fall, depending on start date). The work week is either (1) 30-40 hours a week during IAP, or (2) 8-15 hours a week during Spring and Fall semesters.

Location: MIT campus, E60-275 (there are no opportunities to work in the field). Minimum qualifications: Applicants should be econ majors who have completed 14.30 and have taken 14.73/14.74 or another course with a Poverty Action Lab Affiliate (MITbased J-PAL affiliates are Esther Duflo, Ben Olken, Abhijit Banerjee, Antoinette Schoar, and Michael Greenstone). Programming experience, a strong math background, and experience working with large datasets are also a plus. Duties: Data cleaning, preliminary data analysis, and documenting data for publication.

Most of the work will be done using STATA.

Data cleaning work involves checking variables for logical accuracy and examining issues that may have come up in the data collection or entry process. Preliminary analysis involves running summary statistics and basic regressions and interpreting the results to report interesting findings. Data documentation involves preparation of explanatory files that allow data to be disseminated to the research community as a whole.

Each UROP will be assigned to work on a specific research study and its data sets based on skill set and current project availability.

Supervision: J-PAL UROPs are directly supervised by a full-time research assistant, a graduate student, a project manager, or some combination of the three. These people in turn are supervised by the project’s principal investigator(s). To apply: Please submit a cover letter, resume, and transcript (informal grade report is fine) to Richard McDowell ( rmcdowel@mit.edu ) by December 10 ^th , 2009.

Dear 14.74-ers,

As was brought to my attention, no homework is supposed to be due on the final week of class.  Therefore the 6th problem set is OPTIONAL!

Dan

I'll be discussing:

• The presentation assignment.
• Problems with randomized evaluations
• An interesting paper using IV that will allow us to go over that material.

Dan

If you have any questions about the 14.74 material, please bring them into class on Monday.  Prof. Duflo would be happy to answer them.

Also, I've posted a 1-page description of the presentation assignment, which is due in 2 weeks.  Please read it over and feel free to email with any questions.