What if US development happened in line with approaches today? Here would be some landmarks along the way to success:
July 4, 1776
“We hold these time-bound Development Goals to be self-evident”
1789
Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper ratified by the 13 states
1789-1861
Development takes off based on micro-credit to women to produce handicrafts
America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else, when discovered it was not wanted, and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. – Samuel Eliot Morison
What if the Gates Foundation had been involved?
(1) Gates Foundation announces the Reach the Indies Fund
(2) Columbus gets funding to test Going West approach
(3) Rigorous Evaluation design filed in advance to test effect of Going West on Reach the Indies
(4) October 12, 1492.
(5) Rigorous Evaluation finds no effect of Going West approach on Reach the Indies
(6) Rigorous methodology means Evaluation not permitted to include any ex-post outcomes of Going West not filed in advance in the design (3).
(7) Going West approach declared ineffective, funding ends.
Using data conveniently available from the Peruvian, Ecuadorean, Bolivian, and Chilean Olympic trials, the study compared athletes who just made the Olympic team with those who just fell short. This rigorous regression discontinuity design allowed the study to identify the effect of Olympic participation on Olympic medals.
The study found on average zero effect of Olympic participation on Olympic medals. This study found no evidence that the Olympics produces Olympic medals.
It is hoped that national sports federations will follow more evidence-based policies in the future regarding the Olympics.
