Biography
You may be interested in my web pages - where you can see recent research , and teaching.
Currently I am working on impact assessment, linked to supervision of Maren Duvendack's recently completed thesis 'Smoke and Mirrors: Evidence from Microfinance Impact Evaluations in India and Bangladesh' (2010). The thesis identifies borrowing from multiple sources as a neglected feature of quantitative evaluations of the impacts of microfinance and applies Propensity Score Matching and sensitivity analysis to show that the evidence of impacts of microfinance on well-being in two iconic studies (on SEWA Bank by Chen, 1999, and on Grameen Bank, BRAC and the BRDB in Bangladesh by Pitt and Khandker, 1998) is not robust.
I am participating in an Impact Evaluation of the Mae Lao Irrigation Improvment Project with the Centre for Project and Policy Evaluation of the Office of Agricultural Economics, Government of Thailand, funded by 3ie. I am leading the design of a new Master of Science in Impact Evaluation for Development and a Short Course in Impact Evaluation for Evidence Based Policy in Development (with Maren Duvendack and Ben D'Exelle). I have been reviewer for 3ie Open Windows and am peer advisor on two 3ie funded projects.
I recently participated in a DFID Funded Gender and Growth Assessment with Nitya Rao and Elissaios Papyrakis of DEV and colleagues at the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, the GGA-Nigeria seeks to analyse the gendered impacts of growth in Nigeria over the last decade. The assessment involved statistical analysis, of the gender and growth linkage, and of micro-economic data from the Nigeria Living Standards measurement Survey (2003), Nigerian Demographic and Health Surveys, and the Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys, a review of the grey literature on the impacts of growth processes in different regions of the country on men and women, and two sub-national case studies in Lagos and Kano. The study was initiated in April 2008 and completed by September 2009.
In recent years I have been working on the measurement of poverty particularly in Bangladesh and India.
I am an economist specialising in poverty, agriculture and natural resources (especially water) and environment, rural development and political economy. In recent years I have specialised in South Asia, particularly Bangladesh, with special reference to agricultural growth, poverty trends, groundwater development and irrigation service markets. Earlier I did much work in Malawi and Nigeria. I do formal and informal field work, and quantitative, statistical and econometric analysis as well as discursive analysis and have an interest in Geographical Information Systems.
Recent successful PhD students include Robert Grant (2009) ‘Contract, Kin, Culture And Accumulation In South East Tanzania’ and Maren Duvendack (2010) 'Smoke and Mirrors: Evidence from Microfinance Impact Evaluations in India and Bangladesh'
All Publications
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(2017)
Micro-finance, women’s empowerment and fertility decline in Bangladesh: How important was women’s agency?,
in Journal of Development Studies
53
(5)
pp. 664-683
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2017)
What Is Meant by “Replication” and Why Does It Encounter Resistance in Economics?,
in American Economic Review
107
(5)
pp. 46-51
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2016)
Impact Evaluation for International Development: The Essential Guide,
Routledge
ISBN 978-0415830928 , 0415830923
UEA Repository(Book)
(Published)
(2015)
Ethics of analysis and publication in international development,
in Social Science Research Ethics for a Globalizing World : Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Perspectives .
Routledge
UEA Repository(Chapter)
(Published)
(2015)
Replications in Economics: A Progress Report,
in Econ Journal Watch
12
(2)
pp. 164-191
UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2014)
The Effects of Microcredit on Women's Control over Household Spending in Developing Countries,
Full Text UEA Repository(Working paper)
(Published)
(2014)
Things you wanted to know about bias in evaluations but never dared to think,
in IDS Bulletin
45
(6)
pp. 49–64
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2014)
Meta-analysis of the Impact of Microcredit on Women’s Control over Household Decisions: Methodological Issues and Substantive Findings,
in Journal of Development Effectiveness
6
(2)
pp. 73-96
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2013)
Three 'Rs' of Econometrics: Repetition, Reproduction and Replication,
in Journal of Development Studies
49
(12)
pp. 1607-1614
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2013)
On the Colonial Origins of Agricultural Development in India: A Re-examination of Banerjee and Iyer, 'History, Institutions and Economic Performance',
in Journal of Development Studies
49
(12)
pp. 1631-1646
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2012)
High Noon for Microfinance Impact Evaluations: Re-investigating the Evidence from Bangladesh,
in Journal of Development Studies
48
(12)
pp. 1864-1880
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2012)
Assessing 'What Works' in International Development: Meta-Analysis for Sophisicated Dummies,
in Journal of Development Effectiveness
4
(3)
pp. 456-471
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2012)
The Microfinance of Reproduction and the Reproduction of Microfinance: Understanding the Connections between Microfinance, Empowerment, Contraception and Fertility in Bangladesh in the 1990s,
UEA Repository(Working paper)
(Published)
(2012)
Replication of Quantative Work in Development Studies: Experiences and Suggestions,
in Progress in Development Studies
13
(4)
pp. 307-322
UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2012)
Response to Chemin and to Pitt,
in Journal of Development Studies
48
(12)
pp. 1892-1897
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2011)
High noon for microfinance impact evaluations: re-investigating the evidence from Bangladesh,
UEA Repository(Working paper)
(Published)
(2011)
Comment on: Abou-Ali, H., El-Azony, H., El-Laithy, H., Haughton, J. and Khandker, S., 2010. Evaluating the impact of Egyptian Social Fund for Development Programmes. Journal of Development Effectiveness, 2 (4), 521–555,
in Journal of Development Effectiveness
3
(2)
pp. 297-299
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2011)
Much ado about something: response to Haughton's reply to Duvendack and Palmer-Jones,
in Journal of Development Effectiveness
3
(2)
pp. 302-303
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2010)
Review: Handbook on impact evaluation: quantitative methods and practices, by S.R. Khandker, G.B. Koolwal and H.A. Samad,
in Journal of Development Effectiveness
2
(3)
pp. 387-390
Full Text UEA Repository(Article)
(Published)
(2009)
Gender and Growth Assessment - Nigeria: Bauchi, Cross River, Kano and Lagos State Reports,
UEA Repository(Working paper)
(Published)
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Key Research Interests
Poverty, work and households; natural resources and the environment; agricultural production, irrigation and water resource development; rural and farm economic studies and quantitative data analysis; Geographical Information Systems; agricultural research; common property institutions and collective action; NGOs; political economy. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Research Activities
Links to my recent research on poverty in India and Bangladesh
Earlier I did research on:
- Pro-Poor Growth in India and Bangladesh,
- Work and Well-being,
- Sex-ratios in India,
- Cadastral Mapping and Natural Resource Management,
- Historical Aerial Photographs and Vegetational Change in Ghana,
- Irrigation Service Markets in Bangladesh,
and before that on Irrigation in the North of Nigeria and Tea in Malawi (links to be added).
I am co-organiser of a new research network, 'As Well as the Subject: Additional Dimensions in Development Research Ethics'
Teaching Interests
I have not been teaching in recent years but the following link is to resources I used in teaching on 2000/1