Impact Evaluation Workshop

IRSA Annual Conference, Solo, 2018

Introduction

Dr. Sarah Dong

Fellow, Indonesia Project
Australian National University
sarah.dong@anu.edu.au
The instructor

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Workshop outline
• Day 1
– Introduction
– Causal inference
– RCT
• Day 2
– OLS and Matching
– IV, RDD
– DID
– Other panel methods

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Impact evaluation
• The evaluation of effects of policies / events on
social-economic outcomes
• Emphasize on causal effects (attributable)
• Emphasize on magnitudes of effects (precise)

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Examples:
• Effect of receiving PKH
on years of school of
children
• Effect of village fund on
living standards of the
village
• Effect of tax amnesty on
tax revenue

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Why do we need impact evaluation?
• So we know what policy works and what
doesn’t!
• Rigorous evaluation that tries to attribute
outcomes to the policy only
• Evidence based policy making

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What policy?
• Clearly defined programs
– nature of intervention
– level of targeting (individual, village, province,
etc..)
– allocation rule
– what’s offered / governed by the program?

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What outcomes?
• Clearly defined outcomes
– Specific, Measurable, Attributable, (Targeted)
– Poverty, health, education: yes
– Democratization, investment climate: very
difficult

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Exercise: define the program and the
outcome of the following policies for an
evaluation analysis
1. PKH
2. Village fund (Dana desa)
3. Tax amnesty

Hint: use the last two slides to guide the

thinking

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