Thursday, August 5, 2010

what i've been reading lately (new post!)

My last post was over two months ago. Since then, I started a new internship doing data analysis and helped start a once-a-month weekend meal at my church, so it's been busy!

No food this time. I have been reading a few different development, evaluation, economics, and other exciting-topic blogs this morning and was inspired to share a bit of what I've been reading lately, mostly during & for my internship (and practicum literature review), but also for fun. Yes, I have a nerdy definition of fun. :)

The most interesting thing I've been reading about is called the Acute Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), created by two researchers at the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative. You can download the working paper here, read a review and debate of the paper on Duncan Green's blog here, and peruse an Economist article about it here. The most interesting aspect of the debate was whether or not it makes sense to create Indices in the first place, the primary argument (against) being that you have to deconstruct the Index to understand what it means, so why go to the trouble of creating it in the first place? What's helpful about the MPI is that it provides a standard way of quantifying multidimensional poverty in 100+ countries, something that hasn't been done in a clear or coherent way, until now. But I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

Also on my reading list the last few weeks? Here's a peek:
That's plenty for now - I've probably lost most of you! :)

2 comments:

Molly said...

Hot damn, that's some hyper-specialized reading! Out of Poverty sounds like a good one, and perhaps more accessible for those of us not pursuing graduate degrees in the development arena :)

LynnaeEtta said...

Ha, call it PhD prep, Molly. :) Out of Poverty is good and highly accessible. I'd also recommend anything by Mohammed Yunus, Three Cups of Tea, and I'm supposed to be reading The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier. :)

I forgot to mention that I'm also sporadically reading Half the Sky- I'm only through the first chapter, but it's going to be a good read!