On Tuesday, the World Bank announced the launch of a new database to characterize the quality and composition of the public sector in 115 countries. At this point, you might be thinking: “Who decided that we needed another country-level index?” Fear not!
We Can’t Measure Women’s Empowerment the Same Way Everywhere—But Should We Try?
Measuring empowerment is a perennial challenge for those of us evaluating programs targeting women. Last Wednesday’s launch of J-PAL’s new Practical Guide to Measuring Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in Impact Evaluations at CGD was an exciting opportunity be inspired by impact evaluation powerhouse Rachel Glennerster, the former Executive Director of J-PAL and current Chief Economist at DFID, while simultaneously getting a bit discouraged about the quality of existing quantitative measures of empowerment. Here are a few takeaways for economists doing impact evaluations.