User:Vipul/Chris Blattman

Chris Blattman is an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University, working at the intersection of international development, politics, economics, and policy. He is also affiliated with Innovations for Poverty Action, the Center for Global Development, Yale Economic Growth Center, International Growth Centre, Households in Conflict Network, Experiments in Governance and Politics, and Scholars Strategy Network.

Academic life
Blattman received a BA in Economics from the University of Waterloo. He completed a Master's in Public Administration and International Development (MPA/ID) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a faculty member at Yale University before moving to Columbia University in 2012, where he is an assistant professor of political science as of February 2014.

Research
Blattman's research focuses on the relationship between violence and poverty in African states, including child soldiers in Africa.

Advice
Blattman has published on his website advice to students for emailing professors as well as advice for prospective graduate students and post-docs seeking him as adviser, both of which were commented upon in an Inside Higher Ed article.

Along with Esther Duflo, Dean Karlan and others, he is a proponent of field experiments in the social sciences, though he has also advised against doing field experiments for one's dissertation.

Interviews
Blattman has been interviewed by the Georgetown Public Policy Review, the New York Times Economix blog, and Gadling.

Citations in news and blog pieces
Blattman has been cited and quoted in a number of news and opinion pieces related to international development, such as a New York Times Magazine article about cash transfers and GiveDirectly and a Slate Magazine article discussing a claim by Bill Gates that by 2035, the world would have no poor countries.

Blattman's research on child soldiers was discussed by Lawrence MacDonald on the Center for Global Development blog.

Blattman's blog posts on economic development have been cited by many other economists on their own blogs, including William Easterly and Tyler Cowen. The Freakonomics blog frequently hat tips Blattman for interesting research it blogs about, having discovered it via Blattman's blog. Duncan Green's Oxfam blog From Poverty to Power frequently hat tips and occasionally critiques Blattman.

Some blog posts of Blattman that have been widely cited and critiqued are a blog post on cash transfers as well as blog posts discussing randomized controlled trials.

Controversy
Blattman accused the Freakonomics blog of plagiarism and improper attribution practices, leading to a lengthy email exchange between him and Stephen J. Dubner, which resulted in Blattman retracting some of the more serious accusations.