Editor's Note: I barely resisted the temptation to title every item here "Why not What"
1. Why not What: Chris Blattman posts notes from a recent talk he gave at DfID arguing that focusing too much on "what works?" is a mistake. Via Ryan Briggs on Twitter, here's Angus Deaton's 2010 paper making much the same argument.
2. Why not What, Part II: A new paper from Buera, Kaboski and Shin looks at a host of "well-identified evaluations of the impacts of micro-financial interventions" including the microcredit evaluations, the targeting the ultrapoor programs, and cash grants to try to understand why the results are what they are.
3. American Financial Security (or lack thereof): Americans confidence is their ability to afford retirement is creeping up again, but it's not clear why. A new HSBC study finds that 64% of respondents over age 70 are financially supporting others. Andrew Yarrow writes about "the 45%" who are paid less than $15/hour, are "asset poor" and do not have access to employer-sponsored retirement-savings (note that these are not all the same people).
4. Digital Finance "Expansion": Pablo Garcia Arabehety has a perspective on why digital finance a la M-Pesa has not expanded rapidly in Latin America: proximity and simplicity of bill payment and person-to-person transfers (which account for 96% of usage) was already sufficient. Meanwhile, the Kenyan government is proposing to expand its regulation of M-Pesa to enable tax collection.
5. Measuring Outcomes: Bobbi Gray writes about the balance between "hard" and "soft" outcome measurement, particularly in terms of measuring domestic violence and fear. Those softer measures can play an important role in understanding "why" as well as "what."
