link friday: cash grants for the poor, nonpartisan primaries are awesome, trouble in Wikipedialand
Mood: busy
Posted on 2013-10-25 13:36:00
Tags: links
Words: 157

- Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash Are Surprisingly Effective Form of Aid to the Poor - more evidence! (previously)

- California Sees Gridlock Ease in Governing - good for California, and I really wish more places would adopt nonpartisan primaries. (with the top two candidates going on to the general election)

- The Decline of Wikipedia - long article about how fewer people are editing Wikipedia, and the people that do aren't very diverse.

- T-Mobile Hands Consumers a Pleasant Shocker - amazing international rates for data! T-Mobile is awesome, although their network seems a bit worse than AT&T's...

- Eating popcorn in the cinema makes people immune to advertising - so, advertisers: no more ads at the movies!

- The 9 State Propositions Texans Will Vote On Next Week - nothing terribly interesting, except for Proposition 6 (the water one). Anyway, early voting has started, so find an early voting place here!

- Tea Party Group Leader: File 'Class Action Lawsuit' Against Homosexuality - too crazy not to share.

2 comments

Comment from ext_2237355:
2013-10-25T16:25:26+00:00
The article about cash grants was interesting though I feel the writer made some extra extrapolations and some might be unsound.

I think two critical pieces of information are:

[To get the cash, applicants had to form a group with others in their village and submit a proposal showing how they planned to use the money]

[Of thousands of applicants, 535 groups, were deemed eligible for grants]

It seems like this study was more than just randomly giving money to anyone who applied.

Comment from gregstoll:
2013-11-03T18:26:31+00:00
Ah, that is a good point. Interestingly, on the same day I posted this, GiveDirectly announced the results of a study they did on whether unconditional cash transfers were helpful - it was controlled and in this one people didn't have to apply for money; they were just given it. The study's results are similarly promising.

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