I’m very honoured that this won! Because I expect an uptick in readers for the next few days, I wanted to share an important critique that I didn’t have time to incorporate properly. Tony Senanayake was overall supportive of this paper, but he was also very kind to provide these counterpoints, and to grant me permission to replicate them here:
General issue that I have: Economic empowerment is incredibly valuable to those in LMIC. This has been observed time and again by the revealed preferences of ‘beneficiaries’ in these countries. For example, we see people in India actively harming their health by moving to highly-polluted cities in India (like Delhi) in search of economic opportunities. The use of low-cost, validated, insecticides has the ability to increase yields, income and economic opportunities for farmers. These farmers often make up the plurality if not majority of the citizens in LMIC and generally are a large majority of those living in poverty in these countries. You do note that the impact on yield and livelihoods is an important component of a fuller analysis, however, I think it is something that is critical to highlight more even in this short analysis. Cause prioritization requires a fair trade-off between competing interests and if those we are looking to serve have voted by their feet that they tend to prioritize economic empowerment over health we should value that in some way. I would argue that a discounting in the BOTEC would help here. Furthermore, you may want to include in your questions the need to survey / speak with potential beneficiaries to understand their preferences as they weigh up economic empowerment and health.
Outcome Measurement: The majority of the research you cite and the BOTEC assumptions are focused on IQ outcomes. In the development economic literature in the education space we tend to focus on student learning outcomes as measured by quality and quantity of education. The two measures that are now used as standard measures are Equivalent Years of Schooling and Learning Adjusted Years of Schooling. I would recommend adding some wording that links the IQ outcomes to EYOS or LAYS and then to measures of wellbeing (such as DALYs / QALYs / income etc). This would complete the Theory of Change that you set out. At the moment, the analysis only works through a part of the Theory of Change and leaves the reader assuming that an increase in IQ leads to welfare gains. This is a fair assumption, but not a validated one.
Sri Lanka case study: This is a personal point for me as my family is Sri Lankan. The Sri Lankan case study is a very troublesome one. You are right that the government outlawed insecticides and pesticides and moved to ‘green agriculture’. However this is move is also seen as one of the major contributing factors to the decline in agriculture yields which precipitated the food shortages and economic crisis we are now seeing in Sri Lanka. If you are going to use Sri Lanka as an example, I think it is important to recognize these secondary consequences of policies. The unintended consequences of policies are often large and by definition uncertain and can outweigh the expected benefits.
I’m very honoured that this won! Because I expect an uptick in readers for the next few days, I wanted to share an important critique that I didn’t have time to incorporate properly. Tony Senanayake was overall supportive of this paper, but he was also very kind to provide these counterpoints, and to grant me permission to replicate them here: