Field Experimentation in Political Economy.

Last week I spent my Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at a workshop on Field Experimentation in Political Economy, organized by Columbia University's CSDS. In brief, this was great!

In a bit less brief, during these three days most things necessary for good field experimentation were covered (for the complete agenda see here):

1. The first day was theory-based and discussed the theory behind causal inference (the fundamental problem of causal inference, randomization, instrumental variables, etc.), issues of analysis (estimators, missing data, spillovers), etc.
   
2. The second day was more design-oriented and discussed differences in data-collection techniques (survey, lab, lab-in-the-field, etc.), how to get at sensitive information, etc.
3. The last day discussed practical issues (forging partnerships with implementing partners, ethics, etc.) and several design-in-progress field experiments were presented and discussed.
   

This was a very useful three days. Not only because some of the top people from the field were present (Don Green, Chris Blattman, Becky Morton, Macartan Humphreys, etc.), but also because it was a small crowd (maybe twenty people), the discussions were lively and close to all topics on field experiments were covered. Moreover, what I know about field experiments I learned from our work in the Congo. We would have for example X that had to be done and we would ask Macartan "How to do X?". He would then give us an explanation, an example and some papers to read and we would figure it out (and if we didn't he would do it and explain it in detail). As a result we learned about field experiments bit by bit. Now for the first time I saw all bits together as one coherent whole. Very useful!

Together with Raul we gave two presentations ourselves: During the round table we discussed ex ante analysis plans and the benefits of behavioral measures over for example surveys or lab-in-the-fields. The last day we discussed the design of an evaluation that we will be undertaking in Eastern Congo from 2011 to 2014 with the International Rescue Committee and CARE International. More on the latter soon!

Fig1. To sex-up our presentation a bit we
added a picture - made in Haut
Katanga - of a lovely DRC bridge. In the
end it was about field experiments.