I’m only a little bit into it but so far I’m loving More Than Good Intentions by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel. It’s recipe is perfectly tailored to my interests. It’s a book about international development work that really pushes randomized control trials (RCTs) for evaluation of aid projects and employs behavioural economics to market its solutions to those who could benefit from it. I feel like that’s basically what I end up blogging about, development, RCTs and behavioural economics. Not only that, but they never come across an idea and hold it up as a panacea. Instead, they probe deeper into every good idea and find out where its strengths and weaknesses are. I’m not really deep enough into the book to give you any concrete examples of this yet but so far microcredit (à la Kiva) is getting its fair share of cheers and jeers.

I did feel a bit uncomfortable about marketing aid projects to those in need. My gut reaction, and the gut reaction of those whom I explained this to, was that the poor were being imposed upon by “tricking” them into participating in an aid project like rainfall insurance or microcredit. That initial reaction went away when I realized that these aren’t just aid workers’ pet projects that they’re peddling, these are projects that have been shown to be effective in RCTs which is the most convincing evidence you can have. Also, while behavioural economics does, in a sense, manipulate people’s behaviour, more often than not it demonstrates the barriers that keep us from making rational choices. To me, this kind of marketing and behavioural economics allows people to make better informed choices as opposed to the way we usually understand and interact with marketing which is to compel us, using any means necessary, to purchase a product.

More on this book as I pile through it.