Working papers

These papers cover a range of content. They may focus on current issues, debates and enduring challenges. Policy-relevant papers in this series synthesise or draw on relevant 3ie-funded studies and reviews, as well as other rigorous evidence, to offer new analyses, findings, insights and recommendations. Methods papers and technical guides help advance understanding, design, and use of rigorous and appropriate evaluations and reviews. 3ie also uses this series to publish lessons learned from 3ie grant-making.

Latest working papers

Working papers

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An introduction to the use of randomized control trials to evaluate development interventions

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2013  

Economists and political scientists adopt a range of approaches to evaluate interventions. Prominent among these is the Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) method.

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Institutionalisation of government evaluation: balancing trade-offs

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2010  

Marie Gaarder and Bertha Briceño underline the importance of carefully designed impact evaluation to enhance welfare and developmental effectiveness. 

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Impact evaluation and interventions to address climate change: a scoping study

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2010  

Martin Prowse and Birte Snilstveit argues that to support the effective allocation of substantial climate funds, the selection and design of climate change interventions should be based on evidence

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A checklist for the reporting of randomized control trials of social and economic policy interventions in developing countries

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2010  

Ron Bose augments the consolidated standards of reporting trials checklist, developed to provide information on controlled medical trials, by adapting it to development interventions.

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Impact evaluation in the post-disaster setting

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2009  

Alison Buttenheim synthesises the guiding principles and analytic frameworks for post-disaster impact evaluation, and applies it to a design for the evaluation of relief and recovery programmes fol

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Designing impact evaluations: different perspectives

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2009  

Robert Chambers, Dean Karlan, Martin Ravallion and Patricia Rogers present their views on the evaluation of three interventions – conditional cash transfer, infrastructure, and anti-corruption prog

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Theory-based impact evaluation: principles and practice

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2009  

Calls for rigorous impact evaluation has been accompanied by the quest for what works and why.

Working paper 2

Better evidence for a better world

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2009  

Edited by Mark Lipsey and Eamonn Noonan, this paper argues that better evidence drawn from high quality primary research needs to be synthesized in a way that shows not only what works, but why and

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Some reflections on current debates in impact evaluation

Working paper 3ie PDF icon 2009  

Howard White reflects on the impact evaluation debates. Impact evaluation has been defined in various ways. One refers to outcome and long-term effects. The other is about attribution.