Comments on: Poor Behavior, Good Behavioral Policies? Double Standards for the North and South /2017/09/14/poor-behavior-good-behavioral-policies-double-standards-for-the-north-and-south/ A Critical Perspective On Development Economics Wed, 16 Oct 2019 11:21:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: The randomistas won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics. Will they also win the debate on development economics? | SOAS Blog /2017/09/14/poor-behavior-good-behavioral-policies-double-standards-for-the-north-and-south/comment-page-1/#comment-3873 Wed, 16 Oct 2019 11:21:19 +0000 http://developingeconomics.org/?p=3102#comment-3873 […] I would like to stress an overlooked point: the double standards in the North and in the South (see this blog by Fletchner). For much discussion on safeguarding the ‘libertarian’ in libertarian paternalism […]

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]]> By: Think Positive, Climb out of Poverty? It’s Just Not So Easy! – /2017/09/14/poor-behavior-good-behavioral-policies-double-standards-for-the-north-and-south/comment-page-1/#comment-1079 Thu, 09 Aug 2018 10:01:56 +0000 http://developingeconomics.org/?p=3102#comment-1079 […] These seems like remarkable successes and should of course be welcomed. “That a brief exposure to an inspirational story transformed even a few people’s lives in a measurable way strikes me as remarkable”, Jayachandran writes. At the same time, she concedes that “hope isn’t a cure-all (…, a)nd instilling hope without skills or financial resources is unlikely to be enough to lift people out of poverty.” She also mentions that lifting people’s aspirations to such an extent that hopes and expectations become unrealistic can potentially be harmful. These points cannot be emphasized enough, as it seems that the reception of such studies is often overly optimistic and even naïve. For example, the World Development Report 2015 evaluates another experiment aimed at influencing presumably fatalistic aspirations of poor Ethiopians. Without mentioning potential downsides, the report states that “the study illustrates the ability of an intervention to change a mental model – one’s belief in what is possible in the future” (p. 4). The intervention consisted in a one-day treatment involving watching an inspirational movie as well. All the potential reasons not to expect too much and also to be cautious about the overall effects of such an intervention briefly mentioned by Jayachandran – such as links with structural and non-psychological barriers to overcoming poverty, or the risk of raising unrealistic aspirations – all too often go unnoticed. As a consequence, there is a considerable risk of overestimating the positive effects of such interventions, and to overlook some potential downsides (as also discussed in one of my previous posts on this blog). […]

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