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International audience; Countries posting steady long-run economic decline have generally suffered repeated cycles of poor governance and violence. Since independence, however, Madagascar has never been permanently paralyzed by domestic or even less by external armed conflicts. The island has often been presented by many observers as a ‘peaceful’ country. This article questions the reality of this non-violent Malagasy society, drawing on statistical dataand going back in time to lay the groundwork for a history of political violence. It proposes interpretations of the low use of physical violence in the public space, by the state, social groups and individuals and the growing sense of insecurity, far greater than the rise in interpersonal violence. This situation stems from the structure of Malagasy society itself. Weak organization, among both fragmented elites and a geographically atomizedand socially dominated population, is not conducive to the emergence of political violence. The preponderance of symbolic violence keeps the established order in place and hampers the emergence of movements likely to challenge the societal balance.; Les pays présentant un déclin économique continu sur le long-terme ont généralement souffert de cycles répétés de gouvernance médiocre et de violence. Depuis son indépendance, cependant, Madagascar n’a jamais été paralysée de manière constante par des conflits domestiques, et moins encore par des conflits armés d’origine externe. Pour de nombreux observateurs, l’île est un pays «paisible». Dans cet article nous nous interrogeons sur la réalité de cette société malgache non-violente, étudiant pour ce faire des données statistiques et l’histoire du pays afin de poser les bases d’une histoire de la violence politique. Nous proposons une interprétation du rare recours à la violence dans l’espace public, par l’État, certains groupes sociaux et individus, ainsi que du sentiment croissant d’insécurité, qui est beaucoup plus important que l’essor de la violence interpersonnelle. Cette situation trouve sa source dans la structure même de la société malgache. Un faibledegré d’organisation, à la fois parmi les élites fragmentées et au sein d’une population atomisée géographiquement et dominée socialement, n’est pas un bon ferment pour l’émergence de violences politiques. La prépondérance d’une violence symboliquemaintient l’ordre établi en place et empêche la naissance de mouvements à même de remettre en cause l’équilibre sociétal.

Individuals experience a variety of different events throughout their life-course – birth, marriage, change of employment, school graduation, etc. – which sometimes occur in rapid succession, and whose timing and definition may seem unclear. Now that survey questionnaires are able to record individual trajectories in greater depth, changes of status can no longer be viewed simply as separate events, but involve a transition process of variable duration. The observation, modelling and interpretation of these fuzzy thresholds between two situations constitute a dynamic field of research in the social sciences. The authors of this manual have pooled their experience of event-history data collection to address the questions of “focus”, i.e. finding the right observation distance to grasp the complexity of life histories, and of time, i.e. choosing the right timescale of detailed information collection. After analysing the links between quantitative and qualitative data, addressing the distinction between facts and perceptions, and deconstructing analysis data categories, they offer a number of conceptual and methodological solutions. This study extends beyond the scope of specific examples to develop a major empirical approach in a still largely unexplored area. This book targets a much broader audience than the community of demographers alone. It concerns everyone in the field of social sciences who, at one moment or another, is required to organize data collection in the field, either for research or practical purposes. The Groupe de réflexion sur l’approche biographique (GRAB) brings together researchers and academics from a range of institutions (INED, IRD, CNRS, etc.) working in a variety of disciplines: demography, geography, sociology, economics, etc. It is building on the experience acquired through 25 event-history surveys conducted to date in France, Africa and Latin America.

In October 2019, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer jointly won the 51st Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." But what is the exact scope of their experimental method, known as randomized control trials (RCTs)? Which sorts of questions are RCTs able to address and which do they fail to answer? This book provides answers to these questions, explaining how RCTs work, what they can achieve, why they sometimes fail, how they can be improved and why other methods are both useful and necessary. Chapters contributed by leading specialists in the field present a full and coherent picture of the main strengths and weaknesses of RCTs in the field of development. Looking beyond the epistemological, political, and ethical differences underlying many of the disagreements surrounding RCTs, it explores the implementation of RCTs on the ground, outside of their ideal theoretical conditions and reveals some unsuspected uses and effects, their disruptive potential, but also their political uses. The contributions uncover the implicit worldview that many RCTs draw on and disseminate, and probe the gap between the method's narrow scope and its success, while also proposing improvements and alternatives. This book warns against the potential dangers of their excessive use, arguing that the best use for RCTs is not necessarily that which immediately springs to mind, and offering opportunity to come to an informed and reasoned judgement on RCTs and what they can bring to development.

International audience

International audience

International audience

We reply to CDDP's response to our replication of their published article in AEJ:AE. They reject most of the errors we documented in our replication paper. We provide a detailed answer to each objection they raise. We find that almost all of their rebuttals are driven by mistakes on their part. Once all these mistakes in CDDP's answer have been rectified, we find that all the coding, measurement and sampling errors documented in our replication still hold. All that remains then of the rejoinder is CDDP's argument that the issues we raised are not relevant because they do not substantially modify their impact estimates, and the use made by CDDP of additional sophisticated econometric tests to argue that their original results are robust. We disagree, as we find that correcting the rectifiable errors we identified does indeed show that the impact on assets and profits is not significant, and that the main results are to be found in increasing turnover from self-employment, which is trivial and generates very different conclusions to the original paper’s findings. CDDP also omit to mention that the core conclusion of our replication was that, irrespective of the revised impact estimations, these results must be considered as lacking validity due to the massive inconsistencies found in the data, the substantial imbalances at baseline, the flaws in the experiment’s integrity and the signs of probable contamination by other utility-related interventions. We are unable at this stage to assess the validity of the double post lasso procedure, the Benjamini-Hochberg False discovery rate correction of multiple testing, or the machine learning analysis put forward by CDDP, as they have not disclosed the related statistical scripts. Yet we fail to understand how even the most sophisticated methods could solve the "garbage in-garbage out" issue characteristic of this study. At this stage, we can only say that we have a very different notion of what underpins the internal validity of empirical research. We encourage CDDP to submit their answer to a peer-reviewed journal for a third-party appraisal of this debate.

Comment expliquer le succès académique d'une étude randomisée dont la validité, tant interne qu'externe, est pourtant très problématique ? Prenant l'exemple d'une étude menée par le laboratoire J-PAL sur le microcrédit rural marocain, cet article mobilise les outils analytiques de la statistique, de l'économie politique et de la sociologie des sciences pour répondre à cette question. Il décrit l'ensemble de la chaîne de production de l'étude, depuis l'échantillonnage jusqu'à la publication et la dissémination des résultats, en passant par la collecte de données, la saisie et le recodage, les estimations et les interprétations. Il met en évidence une stratégie particulièrement offensive qui permet aux chercheurs de J-PAL de faire table rase du passé, y compris en s'affranchissant d'une "culture de la donnée", de refuser la critique et de contourner les règles de base de l'exercice scientifique tout au long du processus de recherche. Bien au-delà de J-PAL, nos analyses questionnent la supposée supériorité des méthodes randomisées tout en reflétant un malaise grandissant au sein du champ académique, qui parvient de moins en moins à faire respecter les règles de base de l'éthique et de la déontologie scientifique.

The 2030 Agenda and the transition from the MDGs to the SDGs focus on the quality of institutions, governance, peace and security (GPS). This renewed interest drove a pressing need for measurement, monitoring and evaluation in developing countries and rich countries. Such are the aims of SDG16 at global level and Agenda 2063 (Aspirations 3 and 4) in Africa. This working paper describes and analyses eight dimensions of governance drawn from GPS-SHaSA initiative household surveys “Governance, Peace and Security” in nine Sub-Saharan African countries. Those dimensions are: Non-discrimination and equality; Participation in political and public affairs; Openness; Access to and quality of justice; Responsiveness and satisfaction with services; Absence of corruption; Trust in institutions; Safety and security. This document helps populating with empirical evidence the UN Handbook on governance statistics, developed under the auspices of the Praia Group on Governance Statistics.

How can we explain the academic success of a randomized study whose validity, both internal and external, is very problematic ? Drawing on a study conducted on Moroccan rural microcredit by J-PAL, this article uses analytical tools from statistics, political economy and sociology of science to answer this question. It describes the entire study production chain, from sampling, data collection, data entry and recoding, estimates and interpretations to publication and dissemination of results. It highlights a particularly aggressive strategy carried out throughout the study process and in the field of research. This allows J-PAL researchers to put the past behind them, including by freeing themselves from a "data culture", rejecting criticism and bypassing the basic rules of scientific exercise throughout the research process. Well beyond J-PAL, our analyses question the supposed superiority of randomized methods while reflecting a growing unease within the academic field, which is less and less successful in enforcing the basic rules of ethics and scientific deontology

Microcredit has long stood as a flagship topic for RCTs in development, starting with the publication of a special issue in a leading economics journal on six RCTs conducted in different world regions. This special issue was hailed as the first rigorous and conceivably definitive study on the impacts of microcredit. However, a detailed exploration of the implementation of these six RCTs reveals many limitations with respect to internal and external validity, ethics and interpretation. This paper uses analytical tools from statistics, political economy and development anthropology to discuss the extent to which the entire RCT chain strays from the ideal RCT principles (from sampling, data collection, data entry and recoding, estimates and interpretation to publication and dissemination of results). It also raises questions about the disparity between the academic and political success of this special issue and the many inconsistencies of method.

This last decade has seen the emergence of a new field of research in development economics: randomised control trials. This paper explores the contrast between the (many) limitations and (verynarrow) real scope of these methods and their success in sheer number and media coverage. Our analysis suggests that the paradox is due to a particular economic and political mix driven by the innovative strategies used by this new school’s researchers and by specific interests and preferences in the academic world and the donor community.; La dernière décennie a vu l'émergence d'un nouveau champ de recherche en économie du développement : les méthodes expérimentales d'évaluation d'impacts par assignation aléatoire. Cetarticle explore le contraste entre d’une part les limites (nombreuses) et la circonscription (très étroite)du champ réel d'application de ces méthodes et d’autre part leur succès, attesté à la fois par leur nombre et leur forte médiatisation. L’analyse suggère que ce contraste est le fruit d’une conjonctionéconomique et politique particulière, émanant de stratégies novatrices de la part des chercheurs decette nouvelle école, et d’intérêts et de préférences spécifiques provenant à la fois du monde académique et de la communauté des donateurs.

This article provides some elements for reflection on an apparent paradox. On the one hand, Africa appears to be the continent most riddled by problems related to governance and conflict ; on the other hand, it is at the forefront in both promoting the issue of governance at the international level and in implementing its statistical measurement, an observation that has gone largely unnoticed until now. Will Africa manage to maintain its lead following the adoption by all countries of Sustainable Development Goal 16 on governance, peace and security, to which the continent contributed greatly ?

The paper documents the practical experience of eleven African national statistical offices that tested and eventually institutionalized a methodology for producing official harmonized statistics in the area of governance, peace and security statistics between 2012 and 2017. This took place whilst the rest of the world was still debating the rationale for including this new domain in the next global development agenda. It situates Africa's successful GPS-SHaSA experiment in the context of the continent's long-standing commitment to "achieve political sovereignty through data autonomy". The paper also presents some strategic advantages of the GPS-SHaSA methodology, provides illustrations using selected targets of Africa's Agenda 2063 and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 on how the four types of data generated by the methodology can inform policymaking. It finally concludes by identifying a number of methodological, institutional, financial and communicational investments necessary for GPS statistical production by NSOs to be sustainable, in Africa and beyond.

The role of the elites in Madagascar’s trajectory, especially in the formation and widening of inequalities as a known source of chronic socio-political instability, calls for a closer study of the elite group. This article establishes a sociography of the elites based on statistical surveys, including a unique representative survey focusing on the Red Island’s elites. It provides insights into their strategies to attain and remain in power, but also their opinions on the running of society and especially their views of the obstacles to and the drivers of the country’s long-term development. The majority of elites are from the old aristocracy. Social capital made up of a rich network in terms of its size, diversity and the intensity of the connections established within the elite circle and straddling is used as a strategy to access the highest hierarchical positions. This dominant class displays rather mixed attitudes to democratic principles. The main point of disagreement between elites and the rest of the population concerns the order of priorities on the political agenda. Although maintaining order counts the most for the elites, the rest of the population prioritises improved living conditions for the poor.; Le rôle des élites dans la trajectoire de Madagascar, et en particulier dans la construction et l’accroissement des inégalités, une des sources identifiées de l’instabilité sociopolitique chronique, impose de mieux les appréhender. En s’appuyant sur des enquêtes statistiques représentatives, dont une spécifique et inédite sur les élites de la Grande Île, cet article permet d’établir une sociographie de ces dernières, de comprendre leurs stratégies pour atteindre le pouvoir et s’y maintenir, mais aussi de connaître leurs opinions sur le fonctionnement de la société et notamment leur appréhension des facteurs de blocage ou de développement à long terme du pays. Une majeure partie des élites est issue de l’ancienne aristocratie. La mobilisation du capital social, constitué d’un réseau riche par son ampleur, sa diversité et l’intensité des liens établis au sein du cercle élitaire, ainsi que la multiplication des positions de chevauchement (straddling), constituent une stratégie d’accès aux positions hiérarchiques les plus hautes. Cette classe dominante affiche une adhésion plutôt mitigée aux principes démocratiques. Le principal désaccord entre les élites et la population concerne l’ordre des priorités dans l’agenda politique. Si pour les élites le maintien de l’ordre prime avant toute chose, pour la population c’est l’amélioration des conditions de vie des pauvres qui doit constituer la priorité.

Labour market segmentation is usually defined as the division of the labour markets into separate submarkets or segments, distinguished by different characteristics and behavioural rules (incomes,contracts, etc.). The economic debate on the segmentation issue has been focusing in developedcountries, and especially in Europe, on contractual segmentation and dualism. However, in developingcountries such as Vietnam which is the focus of this study, wage work is marginal and the approach tolabour market segmentation is necessarily slightly different. Indeed, most workers are engaged in theinformal economy and many of them are self-employed in their own household business. Starting with an analysis of the main characteristics of the national labour market, this paper presents a survey of the literature on informality and labour market segmentation in Vietnam (section 2). Section 3 describes the institutional background related to firm registration and social protection in Vietnam, and analyses the reasons for informality in relationship with the institutional framework. Section 4 describes the reforms being put in place and employment strategies related to the informal economy. Policyrecommendations are proposed in the last section.; La segmentation sur le marché du travail est usuellement définie comme la coexistence de deux segments ou secteurs qui se distinguent par leurs caractéristiques et les comportements qui y prévalent(niveau de revenus, contrats, etc.). Le débat économique sur la segmentation s’est focalisé dans les pays développés, et en particulier en Europe, sur le dualisme résultant des contrats. Cependant, dans les pays en développement comme le Vietnam, les emplois salariés étant marginaux, la segmentation sur le marché du travail doit nécessairement être appréhendée de manière différente. La majorité desemplois relève de l’économie informelle et une grande partie est constituée d’auto-emploi dans des entreprises individuelles. Partant d’une analyse des principales caractéristiques du marché du travail national, ce document présente ensuite une revue de la littérature sur l’informalité et la segmentation sur le marché du travail au Vietnam (section 2). La section 3 décrit le cadre institutionnel en matière d’enregistrement et de protection sociale au Vietnam, et analyse les raisons de l’informalité. La section 4 examine les réformes qui ont été mises en place et les stratégies en termes d’emploi touchant l’économie informelle. Enfin, des recommandations politiques sont proposées dans la dernière section.