1. Basic Income: I haven't touched on basic income in what seems like months, but that's because there was little to report. This week Planet Money has an episode (adapted from 99% Invisible) on the details of what basic income is and how it might be delivered. And apparently last week, Y Combinator announced some more details of their US Basic Income study. If details matter to you, you'll be pleased to know that the work in Oakland that received a lot of attention last year was a feasibility study and now they are planning an RCT with 3000 individuals in two different states.
2. Methods and More: My next book of interviews is about big data and machine learning (If you have a better name than "Dated Conversations," let me know). Susan Athey is the first person I interviewed for the new book this past spring (I hope to have some excerpts of that interview available soon) in part because of some things Athey had written on how machine learning will change the field of economics. There's a new version of a (preliminary) paper on the topic. It has details.
More specifically on details and methods, here's a new paper on the use of randomization to study network effects, a quite tricky prospect. But when it comes to methods and details mattering, two items this week really hit the nail on the head. First, Buzzfeed of all places has a lengthy piece examining the myriad problems that have emerged as people examine the details of studies published by Brian Wansink's Food and Brand Lab at Cornell. Missing data, mis-described studies, statistical errors, it's stunning. This week also saw publication of what is many ways the exact opposite of what appears to be have happened at the Food and Brand Lab: David Roodman's incredibly detailed review and replication of the research on the relationship between incarceration (or decarceration) and crime rates for the Open Philanthropy Project. The starkest contrast for me isn't actually the attention to detail but the philosophy. The Wansink saga began with a blog post that indicated that the Lab was torturing data until it said what they wanted; the Roodman review and replication was done because they were concerned that their beliefs were wrong.
3. Microfinance, US and Global: My expertise and knowledge is definitely concentrated in global microfinance rather than microfinance in the US, but because of the work on the US Financial Diaries I'm learning a lot more about the US. This week for instance I got to hang around the outskirts of the Opportunity Finance Network meeting. There are no links here but a couple of things have really struck me and so I wanted to note them, and invite you to tell me what you think/have seen, etc.
First, I was really surprised about how open the US microfinance community is about the presence of and need for subsidy. Globally I see an almost totemic adherence to the idea of self-sustainability, even in the presence of compelling evidence of the prevalence of subsidy. I'm sure that's a consequence of how those industries have evolved but I'm curious about any ideas about the details of the US microfinance history that led to this.
Second, two parallel conversations really struck me. One was about "community investment" in order to create "quality jobs." The second was about how to use technology to cut down costs of making loans, costs that are mostly about staffing--or in other words, how to expand microfinance by lowering the need for quality employees in the lenders. I bring this up not to point fingers about hypocrisy, but to raise the inevitable trade-offs for MFIs everywhere about reach and cost. The tension doesn't seem to exactly be on the surface in the US but it is more apparent than in global conversations, where the value of the jobs created by the global microfinance movement seem to be ignored, especially in the rush to digital finance services.
Finally, I was quite surprised at the contrast in attention to borrower outcomes. Again, I'm a novice here, but whereas in international conversations I feel that everyone is talking about "impact" in terms of household incomes and consumption, in the US conversations I've been a part of, the focus seems to be much more operational--in other words, does the business continue to exist, repay and take another loan. That may be a consequence of starting from a more "antibiotic" theory of change and serving existing businesses with documented troubles accessing capital, but again I'm interested in any other perspectives.
4. US Inequality: The release of the Republican "tax plan" this week was the inspiration for the title of this week's edition but since there really is nothing there I'm not going to link to it. My go-to for keeping track of the details and what effect they will have is Lily Batchelder (NYU Law and former tax counsel for the Senate Finance Committee). Just scroll through her Twitter timeline to understand which details matter and how much.
If you are interested in details of Americans' financial situation, there are two notable reports this week. The Consumer Financial Protection Board published the first "Financial Well-Being in America" report. There's lots to digest but a broad summary might be: there are big racial and gender gaps in financial well-being, but also big gaps within groups so that no particular feature is a reliable predictor of well-being. The Fed released the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances this week as well. Details galore, but here and here are some overviews which boil down to: "the biggest gains continue to flow to the richest Americans." And here is a bizarre misreading of the details from the Washington Post. It's as if no one had ever said "correlation is not causation."
Finally, here is a heartbreaking story about how the poisoning of Flint, MI's water system led to a huge spike in fetal deaths. Of course, the story is by the same person who did the "if you want to be wealthy, buy a house" story.
5. Education: Finally, in detailed reports released this week, the 2018 World Development Report (yes, the same week as the 2016 SCF, the actual year of publication is apparently a detail that doesn't matter) is out with a focus on education, particularly on the need to focus on learning rather than measures of schooling. Make sure to congratulate David Evans. My favorite take on the new WDR is from Justin Sandefur, who in this tweet stream points out that "all sides seem to embrace the learning crisis and still find justification for their previously chosen policies" (with linked examples). You'll have to check the details to see if you agree.
Frederica Frangapane and Alex Piacentini have created a site to visualize the stories of 6 migrants who arrived in Italy from four different countries in 2016, called The Stories Behind a Line.
