Impact of Nobel laureates’ work is felt by SA’s youth and kids in our classrooms
Method tests what actually works in field
● Last week Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Michael Kremer (Harvard University) were jointly awarded the Nobel economics prize. According to the Nobel statement: “The research conducted by this year’s laureates has considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty … their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics.”
Over the past 20 years, the three laureates have developed and popularised the method of randomised evaluations as a valuable tool in crafting more effective development policy.
The method tests precise, often small, questions about what does and doesn’t work to impact livelihoods. The approach challenges researchers and policymakers to more deeply understand the livelihoods of people, especially the poor, and how and why they might respond to policies or programmes in the ways they do.
A classic example is the original randomised evaluation performed by Kremer and others in Kenya in the 1990s. The researchers tested whether providing textbooks, something glaringly lacking in classrooms at that time, would improve learning outcomes. Counter to expectations, the study found no evidence that textbook provision increased the average test scores of the children.
However, pupils at the top of the class did do better. Unpacking these results showed that most pupils could not read at the level required to engage with the textbooks. The first-order policy problem was not to provide textbooks, but to teach pupils at a level at which they can engage.
This study stimulated a burgeoning evidence base around the world on how to improve education outcomes in often under-resourced and challenging schooling environments.
And the three laureates have done a lot more than pioneer an approach. They have been tireless advocates of bringing the lessons learnt about better policies to policymakers all over the world and inspired a global movement of others to build on their work.
Banerjee and Duflo, together with Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard), co-founded the Abdul Jameel Poverty Action Lab, or J-PAL, at MIT in 2003. Today J-PAL is a global research centre with 181 affiliated researchers and 400 staff at leading research universities around the world. To date more than 950 randomized evaluations have been conducted by J-PAL affiliated researchers, more than 400-million people have been reached by scale-ups of programmes found to be effective by J-PAL affiliates and more than 7,000 people have participated in J-PAL training programmes around the world.
Many other institutions, such as Innovations for Poverty Action, are also applying these methods.
What does the award mean for SA?
The links of Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer to SA are much closer than many will know. J-PAL Africa, which leads J-PAL’s work in Sub-Saharan Africa, is based in the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (Saldru) in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town. Banerjee provides academic leadership to the JPAL Africa team and the team has worked with all three laureates on studies and/or strategy.
Established in 2010, J-PAL Africa has trained hundreds of researchers, policymakers and practitioners in the method. It works closely with them to pilot and analyse specific policy questions and to apply the lessons being learnt, to ensure local capacity to use these approaches and local understanding of their appropriate use.
In SA, there is a growing community that is questioning, testing and adapting policies and programmes to make them more effective. J-PAL Africa, together with Saldru’s researchers and a much wider group of affiliated researchers and project partners, has been particularly active in youth unemployment. They are conducting evaluations with young people, sharing global and local evidence and contributing to policy thinking to improve the employment prospects for millions in SA. Partners include the National Planning Commission, department of employment & labour, the Jobs Fund, Harambee Youth Accelerator, yes4youth and the Basic Package of Support for Youth.
Valuable practical evidence has been generated about what works to support young people in their job search as they progress from school to work, including the effects of meaningful reference letters from past employers or the development of action plans for effective search.
There are also strong examples of such research work being designed and driven from within the government. The department of basic education has, for example, done extensive work testing the efficacy of early grade reading programmes, using the randomised evaluation methods popularised by Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer as part of their tool kit. In fact, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of this in his state of the nation address this year: “The department’s early grade reading studies have demonstrated the impact that a dedicated package of reading resources, expert reading coaches and lesson plans can have on reading outcomes. We will be substantially expanding the availability of these early reading resources across the foundation phase of schooling.”
This is a lovely example of rigorous evidence informing policy at home. Bringing such evidence to the formulation and assessment of policy is critical if we are to see policies that better serve the people. After 1994, the post-apartheid government showed strong commitment to carefully designed policies. This commitment diminished greatly over the past decade. Fortunately, there is renewed prioritisation of the use of evidence as key to policymaking.
The three Nobel laureates have brought new tools to designing development policy. As J-PAL Africa and Saldru, we are proud to have worked with all three to bring appropriate use of these tools to our country and region.
Leibbrandt is the director at Saldru and Poswell is executive director at J-PAL Africa in the University of Cape Town’s School of Economics