A. PROJECT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

 

Overview

The Development Impact Evaluation unit (DIME) is seeking to recruit several research assitants to work on a large portfolio of impact evaluation studies. The consultant will work with the DIME and external research team on the analysis of micro-data collected by DIME. The duration of the contract will be for 4 months with a possibility of extension depending on performance. Varying start dates are possible depending on the project’s needs and can be as soon as April 2017.

Program Description

The Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) unit works to mainstream impact evaluation into World Bank-supported operations, and build government capacity for impact evaluation and evidence-based policy making.

Impact evaluations use rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental methods to identify the actual impact of a program against a scientifically valid counterfactual. Unlike traditional performance monitoring, impact evaluations ask what would have happened to the beneficiaries if the program had not taken place, or if a different program design had been chosen. If impact evaluations are undertaken prospectively, i.e. before scaling up an innovative policy intervention, they are a powerful tool to identify the most promising and cost-effective policy options. In that sense, impact evaluations are a key instrument for improving aid effectiveness and increasing
fiscal accountability. At the same time, they are a management tool for results-based policy planning.

DIME emphasizes client ownership of impact evaluations in order to maximize their use and relevance for the client’s policy learning needs; and client capacity development through learning by doing.

Senegal Justice project

For the Senegal Speed of Justice project, DIME works with the Ministry of Justice of Senegal and the Tribunal Régional de Dakar to test the impacts of a country-wide procedural reform and a salience of information intervention on the speed of legal dispute resolution of civil and
commercial cases and enterprise outcomes. The project works with court-level administrative data and other administrative and survey data, including a survey of firms that have been involved in legal disputes. The speed of justice is typically referred to as a key indicator of a country’s business climate and figures at the core of the World Bank’s Doing Business indicators. Intuitively, slow justice delivery is associated with a poorer business climate. But the impact of the speed of justice on firms’ health and behavior has to date not been rigorously evaluated. The same is true for court-level interventions susceptible of cutting delays. The Senegal Speed of Justice project
aims to provide rigorous evidence for both questions.
The preferred work location would be in Paris, France. The research assistant would work on IErelated datasets for DIME’s Senegal Speed of Justice program. The RA will work under the
supervision of Florence Kondylis (Senior Economist, DIME) and Mattea Stein (Consultant, DIME).

Brazil portfolio

The DIME Brazil portfolio and covers projects in different sectors including agriculture, private sector development, education and transport. The RA will support the team across multiple projects depending on needs. The consultant will be based in Washington DC. The consultant’s main responsibility will be to clean baseline data, perform real time checks on data collection activities in the field, programming survey instruments in SurveyCTO and conducting the descriptive and regression analysis as input for the presentation of the results to the clients as well as academic papers. The RA will work under the supervision of Florence Kondylis (Senior Economist, DIME), Caio Piza (Economist, DIME) and Astrid Zwager (Research Analyist, DIME).

Other opportunities

There are other opportunities in the team available and which can be discussed during the selection procedure.

 

B. SCOPE OF WORK

The consultant will undertake the following tasks:
i. Clean an administrative and primary datasetand create all necessary indicators.
ii. Clean and link dataset to other datasets (various administrative, survey) using appropriate methods. In some cases the linking can be done using unique IDs, in others fuzzy matching on string variables will be required. This may require programming matching algorithms,
performing manual matching, and linking up with field staff for additional information and collaboration on specific tasks.
iii. Work with the DIME team on updating the analysis plan of the firm-survey data and carry out the coding to perform this analysis (Descriptive Statistics and Regression Analysis).

C. DELIVERABLES/SPECIFIC OUTPUTS EXPECTED FROM CONSULTANT

The consultant will document her/his work electronically and share the following files:

• Data queries provided to the DIME team/field coordinator/research collaborators/ survey firm and the responses received in red font;
  Data cleaning in one do file for each study, even when multiple clean files are produced;
• Merging data and constructing variables in one do file;
• All data analysis referring to the same study will be documented in a do-file or multiple clearly labeled ado-files that would be called in one master file; all tables will be automatically created from the analysis do files;
• An index will be prepared for each study outlining which do file outputs which files (dta and table xls or pdf files)

Quality assurance of the above deliverables will be provided by DIME TTL and other senior researchers on the team.

D. SKILS REQUIRED

Academic specialization:

At least a Master’s degree in Economics, statistics or related field, quantitative research skills are necessary, preferably with a concentration in development economics, impact evaluation and applied micro-econometrics.

Experience:

The candidate must have technical expertise in impact evaluation and econometric analysis (proficiency in STATA is a requirement), particularly working with primary data from large-scale data bases. Experience in working collaboratively in a large research team is a plus.

Language:

Superior written and oral communications skills in English are essential

E. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The World Bank shall, solely and exclusively, own all rights in and to any work created in connection with this agreement, including all data, documents, information, copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets or other proprietary rights in and to the work. The consultant is not
allowed to post or publish (electronically or in print) any project-related information without the explicit permission of the World Bank Impact Evaluation Team.

Application

Qualified candidates should send their resume, a brief (maximum 300 words) statement of interest as well as a do-file prepared by the applicant that best indicates the level of experience in Stata. to Chloë Fernandez (cfernandez2@worldbank.org) and Astrid Zwager (azwager@worldbank.org), no later than March 8th 2017. Please send your application with “Application DIME RA” in the subject
line. Only successful candidates will be contacted.

The World Bank Group is committed to achieving diversity in terms of gender, nationality, culture and educational background. Individuals with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.