Chand meri zameen blaring on the speakers, puris and samosas frying in the back. Only the “public” is missing in this “public hearing”. It’s finally starting here after the delay of an hour. More people here from the the government than the public.

I'm starting this thread on why doing data-driven research in Pakistan is *so* hard. Here I'll document mostly my own experiences and observations. I'll try to provide comparisons when I can. Today, I'll talk about local govt data

One pet peeve I have is that despite so many experiments with local govt in Pk, it is shocking to me that we have no systematic data on *basic* descriptives on what actually happened. Take the 2015 LG elections in KP as an example...

Just accepted @The_JOP

"Information, Candidate Selection, and the Quality of Representation: Evidence from Nepal" with @ZuhadHai & @bnpaul20

RCT: party leaders update candidate selection when polling info is presented to them, ⇧ vote share!

dropbox.com/s/a4fxhyq6cwm4…

THREAD Selecting candidates for elections is a key job of party leaders. Yet we know little about this process, perhaps because party operations are often black boxed to researchers.

Working with a pol party in Nepal we study how cand selection can be improved for parties *and* voters!