#13 - Claire Walsh on testing which policies work & how to get governments to listen to the results
80,000 Hours Podcast - A podcast by The 80000 Hours team
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In both rich and poor countries, government policy is often based on no evidence at all and many programs don’t work. This has particularly harsh effects on the global poor - in some countries governments only spend $100 on each citizen a year so they can’t afford to waste a single dollar. Enter MIT’s Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). Since 2003 they’ve conducted experiments to figure out what policies actually help recipients, and then tried to get them implemented by governments and non-profits. Claire Walsh leads J-PAL’s Government Partnership Initiative, which works to evaluate policies and programs in collaboration with developing world governments, scale policies that have been shown to work, and generally promote a culture of evidence-based policymaking. Summary, links to career opportunities and topics discussed in the show. We discussed (her views only, not J-PAL’s): * How can they get evidence backed policies adopted? Do politicians in the developing world even care whether their programs actually work? Is the norm evidence-based policy, or policy-based evidence? * Is evidence-based policy an evidence-based strategy itself? * Which policies does she think would have a particularly large impact on human welfare relative to their cost? * How did she come to lead one of J-PAL’s departments at 29? * How do you evaluate the effectiveness of energy and environment programs (Walsh’s area of expertise), and what are the standout approaches in that area? * 80,000 Hours has warned people about the downsides of starting your career in a non-profit. Walsh started her career in a non-profit and has thrived, so are we making a mistake? * Other than J-PAL, what are the best places to work in development? What are the best subjects to study? Where can you go network to break into the sector? * Is living in poverty as bad as we think? And plenty of other things besides. We haven’t run an RCT to test whether this episode will actually help your career, but I suggest you listen anyway. Trust my intuition on this one.
