Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
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Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#2I'm one of the authors of this post - look forward to hearing you comments!
Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#3From the article:
"So is it fair to say 'most social programmes don’t work?'
I think this is a little ambiguous and potentially misleading. Individual projects mostly don’t work, but whole areas often do have a positive impact. So, if you pick an intervention at random, then on average your impact will be positive, because there’s a small but important chance of you picking one of the good ones."
Can we fix this to the proper, non clickbait title of "What fraction of social programmes don’t work?"
Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#4From the article: "So is it fair to say 'most social programmes don’t work?' I think this is a little ambiguous and potentially misleading. Individual projects mostly don’t work, but whole areas often do have a positive impact. So, if you pick an intervention at random, then on average your impact will be positive, because there’s a small but important chance of you picking one of the good ones." Can we fix this to t…
"4 Reasons Why The Answer To This Complicated Social Science Question is More Subtle Than You Think - The Conceptual Clarification in 3 Will Shock You"
Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#5I'm one of the authors of this post - look forward to hearing you comments!
So, I couldn't get a good feel on how much of the issue is small sample size?
Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#6From the article: "So is it fair to say 'most social programmes don’t work?' I think this is a little ambiguous and potentially misleading. Individual projects mostly don’t work, but whole areas often do have a positive impact. So, if you pick an intervention at random, then on average your impact will be positive, because there’s a small but important chance of you picking one of the good ones." Can we fix this to t…
"4 Reasons Why The Answer To This Complicated Social Science Question is More Subtle Than You Think - The Conceptual Clarification in 3 Will Shock You"
"4 Reasons Why The Answer To This Complicated Social Science Question is More Subtle Than You Think You Never Thought Existed"
Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#7From the article: "So is it fair to say 'most social programmes don’t work?' I think this is a little ambiguous and potentially misleading. Individual projects mostly don’t work, but whole areas often do have a positive impact. So, if you pick an intervention at random, then on average your impact will be positive, because there’s a small but important chance of you picking one of the good ones." Can we fix this to t…
"4 Reasons Why The Answer To This Complicated Social Science Question is More Subtle Than You Think - The Conceptual Clarification in 3 Will Shock You"
are the four reasons on eight different pages?
Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#8The big secret is social programs are largely to promote stability and prevent civil unrest. The effectiveness at the stated intention is a secondary concern.
We probably are better off with a basic income style system where people can opt-into public (or private) education, public (or private) medical services, and the balance is paid out to them in cash every month. The cost being recouped via cutting existing programs and raising tax revenues to recapture 100% of the value once you have a 6 figure household income.
Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#9"Is it fair to say that it's hard to create good social programs? And we should all remember that some social programs work far better than most people realize."
Something like that might not give the wrong impression...?
Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
#10The way of telling if it works is: statistical significance.
This "approach" to research was debunked as pseudoscience long ago (eg here is one from 1967[1], and that wasn't the first)... So the answer is: no one knows what works or doesn't, (edit: at least not based on the usual claimed method of drawing conclusions from the data).
[1] http://www.fisme.science.uu.nl/staff/christianb/downloads/me...