The proximity contols method, developed by Laterite’s Dimitri Stoelinga and Sachin Gathani, is a new concept that contributes to practical thinking on impact evaluation. Proximity controls offer a quick and easy way to construct a control region to measure the impact of an intervention or event with aggregate level effects (e.g., at the country/province levels).
Our paper, “Export Similarity and Proximity Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies”, was published this month in the Journal of Globalization and Development.
We’d like to say a special thank you to Ricardo Hausmann for motivating us to submit this work, and to Cesar Hidalgo for his encouragement and ideas – his work has been a huge inspiration for Laterite. We would also like to thank Miguel Almunia, Rupert Simons, Jon Argent and Michele Savini for all their advice.
If you’re interested in this topic, you can also read our paper on applying the proximity controls methodology to the case of one-stop-shops for licencing on new business creation in Rwanda and another 11 countries.
The Journal of Globalization and Development (JGD) publishes academic research and policy analysis on globalization, development, and the complex interactions between them. The journal is dedicated to stimulating dialogue between theory and rigorous empirical studies to push the boundaries of development analysis. It also seeks to address policy issues by combining innovative academic insights with in-depth practitioner knowledge. JGD attempts to integrate the best development research from different fields with contributions from scholars in developing and developed countries.