Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA)

PGDM (RM) – 42 (2021-23)

Academic Year 2021-22

Term IV
Title of the Course: Impact Evaluation Credit: 3
Name of the Faculty: Vivek Pandey
Email ID: vivek@irma.ac.in Contact No.: 629

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Development programs, CSR initiatives and policies are typically designed to change outcomes, for
instance, to raise household incomes, to improve learning outcomes, or to reduce illness. Whether or not
these changes are actually achieved, is a crucial public management question, but one that has not been
often examined. More commonly, program managers and policy makers focus on controlling and
measuring the inputs and immediate outputs of a program- how much money is spent, how many toilets
got constructed, etc. But they fail to observe and gather ‘evidence’ on causal effects of development
interventions on program benefits.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
The primary objective of the course is to offer an intermediate level exposure to state-of-art econometric
and statistical methods of impact evaluation.

LEARNING OUTCOME:
The course prepares student for undertaking impact evaluation independently. Therefore, it is expected
that they will be able to design and execute the technical aspects of impact evaluation without any
support. In addition to the econometric methods of impact evaluation, students will be encouraged to
learn essential skills for survey design and working on CAPI versions of such survey instrument including
Survey CTO. Students will be offered technical sessions on latest versions of ‘STATA’ and ‘Survey CTO’
in workshop mode and they will be expected to refine their skills further so as to complete the course
requirements (assignments and term papers) and in the process evolve as independent consultants and
researchers.

COURSE REQUISITES: <NIL>

PEDAGOGY / TEACHING METHODOLOGY: Black-board teaching, laboratory sessions, and class

discussion

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EVALUATION:
Component *Weightage %
Class Participation 0
Quiz (announced) 0
Individual Assignment 0
Group Assignment (2) 30
Take Home Assignment 0
Research Article Review/Discussion 0
Any Other Component (Term Paper) 30
Mid Term 20
End Term 20
TOTAL 100
*No single component should have a weightage of more than 50 percent of evaluation in a 1.5-
credit course and more than 35 percent in a 3-credit course.

DETAILS/INSTRUCTIONS FOR EVALUATION: <NIL>

TEXT BOOKS:
 A.H. Studenmund (2017), “Using Econometrics: A Practical Guide”, 7th Edition, Pearson.
ADDITIONAL BOOKS / READINGS: NIL

SCHEDULE OF SESSIONS:

Notation for Readings (S for Studenmund; IEP for Impact Evaluation in Practice; T for TAU)

Module I: Introduction to Impact Evaluation

Session 1-2: Introduction to Impact Evaluation, STATA, and Survey CTO
Objective: To introduce students to the core problems that consultants and researchers should seek to
address when tasked with impact evaluation assignment.
Reading(s): IEP- 3; T- Ravallion 2001 (Mystery of Vanishing Benefits)

Module II: Randomized allocation of the treatment and Selection Bias

Session 3-6: Field experiments, Randomized Control Trials, Natural Experiments, and OLS
Reading(s): IEP- 4; T- Anderson (2011), Caste as an Impediment to Trade
RCT Lab Session: T- Chong et al. (2016), Iron Deficiency & Schooling

Module II: Matching Methods

Sessions 7-11: Propensity Score Matching, Dose-Response Functions and Binary Choice Models

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Reading(s): IEP- 8; S- 13; T- Heinrich et al., 2010 (A Primer for Applying Propensity Score Matching
Technique)
Matching Lab Session:
T-Pandey, V. et al. (2019) Spill-over effects of formal political institutions & market interventions on
women empowerment: Non-Experimental Evidence from India
T- Pandey, V. et al. (2019) Labor and welfare impacts of a large scale livelihoods programs: Quasi-
experimental evidence from India

Module III: Instrumental Variable Methods

Sessions 12-16: Two-stage least squares, exclusion restrictions, placebos, threats to identification
Reading(s): IEP- 5, S-14, T- Hand-out on Instrumental Variable
IV Lab Session:
T: Anderson (2011),Caste as an Impediment to Trade

Module IV: Difference-in-Difference and Policy induced evaluation methods

Sessions 17-20: Panel Data econometrics, fixed effects estimation, Regression Discontinuity Designs
Reading(s): S-16, IEP- 7
D-I-D Lab Session:
T: Cai, 2016 (The Impact of Insurance Provision on Household Production & Financial Decisions)

IMPORTANT GUIDELINES:
The material in this class will be continuously building upon the concepts that have already been
introduced. If you miss a step while checking email, texts, etc, during class, you’ll be lost for the rest of
the lecture. To reduce the risk of this happening, please power down cell phones and laptops. To help
keep everyone engaged I will regularly cold-call on students at random, with a higher probability for
those appearing distracted, sleepy or confused.
Is the class moving too slowly/quickly? Do you feel like you know less upon leaving a lecture than when
you walked in? Please let me know! Options include: after class, during office hours, or by email. If you
have a course related question, odds are that other students are wondering the same thing: post your
question through an email before the class starts, preferably in the morning hours, so that it may be
answered once for everyone. Options do not include: phone, text message, whatsapp, facebook, twitter,
etc.
If, however, you do send an email, please remember that you are an educated adult enrolled in a
professional school. This should go without saying, so I apologize if the following guidelines come across
as patronizing to those who would never dream of committing such abominations in any correspondence,
let alone the professional type. Emails that abide by these guidelines will receive replies considered
prompt by academic standards, which is somewhere between business prompt and government prompt.
● The letters b, c, r, u, k, and y may occasionally stand in for numbers, but they are not words. Not ever.
Similarly, the numbers 2 and 4 are not prepositions.
● Apostrophes are not decorative, and complete sentences are not optional. Their omission reflects a lack
of awareness of these facts.
● “lol,” “totes,” and their ilk are also not words that convey anything but an inferior intellect.

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● The same goes for emoticons. They are like daggers in my soul. Use your words.
● Stringing words together that do not belong (i.e. “awesomesauce”) can be quite distressing to your
reader, as he or she will naturally fear that you are suffering from stroke induced aphasia, or similar
traumatic brain injury. A call for an ambulance would not be an overreaction.
Please note that cheating on quizzes and examinations is next to being criminal and will attract a straight
‘F’ on that component, and in addition the extant PRM guidelines will be strictly followed.

PARTICIPANTS ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

Students will be responsible for all the discussions and material covered in the class. Given the applied
nature of the course, it is expected from them that they seek to learn the applications of classroom
presentation by the instructor to real life settings and engage with the discipline conducive with the level
of a Post Graduate level coursework.
HOW DOES THIS COURSE IS RELEVANT TO IRMA’S MISSION:
Economists’ use of data to answer cause-and-effect questions constitutes the field of applied
econometrics. The tools of the trade are disciplined data analysis, paired with machinery of statistical
inference. There is a mystical aspect to our work as rural managers: we are after the truth, but truth is not
revealed in full, and the messages the data transmit require interpretation.

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