University of Groningen
Impact evaluations, bias, and bias reduction
Eriksen, Steffen
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Publication date: 2018
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Eriksen, S. (2018). Impact evaluations, bias, and bias reduction: Non-experimental methods, and their identification strategies. University of Groningen, SOM research school.
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Acknowledgements
Looking back at the last three years of my life, I can look back at a time that has been very special to me. I got married to the love of my life, Malika, and we are currently in the process of moving to our new house we have bought together. On top of that, I had the pleasure to be part of a top academic environment at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen. During the three years of my Ph.D., I have grown not only a researcher, and a teacher, but also as a person. The experiences I have had in the past three years at the Department of Economics, Econometrics, and Finance, are irreplaceable, and will forever be with me. For that I am very grateful, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all who have helped me during my Ph.D. However, some deserve special attention.
The first two I would like to express my gratitude towards are my supervisors, Robert Lensink, and Francesco Cecchi. You have both been the best supervisors one could ask for. I am grateful for all your help and guidance, and your low-monitoring approach which allowed me to work independently, and at my own pace. To this day, it still impresses me how you both can keep it all together with the incredible workload, and all the traveling. However, despite all this, you were always ready to answer my mails or phone calls, helping me through the difficult situations I stumbled into along the way. A special thanks goes to my former teacher, and later colleague, Elisabetta de Cao. You were the one who first introduced me to impact evaluations, and later introduced me to the MFSII project, which ended up being a considerable part of my Ph.D. thesis. I will never forget how it all first started with my study buddy, Dennis Prak and I, evaluating the impact of moringa trees in rural Ethiopia. What started out as an assignment for the course Applied Microeconometrics, later turned into 11 different projects I would work on during my Ph.D.
I would also like to thank all the people that notably helped improve my research: Rob Alessie and Viola Angelini for econometric support; Rasmus Wiese for the collaboration on chapter 2; Niels Hermes for comments on chapter 2 and 4; Jakob de Haan and Jørgen T. Lauridsen for comments on chapter 2; Paul Mosley for his collaboration on chapter 3; Clemens Lutz and Getaw Tadesse for the collaboration on chapter 5. My fellow Ph.D. students: Dennis Prak, Jelle van Essen, Federico Giesenow, and Adriana Garcia for the interesting discussions, and talk about everyday Ph.D. life.
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I would also like to thank my four officemates I had during the years of my Ph.D: Aljar Meesters, Marco Meyer, Arjan Trinks and Kenan Qiao. Aljar, I appreciate your help with Stata. You are a true Stata wizard. Marco, I enjoyed our philosophical discussions. Arjan and Kenan, I appreciate our very ‘sustainable’ discussions, and I also enjoyed our games at the football table every time we needed a break.
I would also like to thank the members of the reading committee, Rob Alessie, Ruerd Ruben and Charles Adjasi for their useful comments, and suggestions, which I have tried my best to incorporate in my thesis.
Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family for always being there for me, supporting me, and distracting me from all my Ph.D. troubles; and above all the person whom I have spent the most and the best time with throughout these years: My beloved wife Malika. I would not have been able to finish this thesis if it have not been for you.
