Insights

Perspectives on business transformation

The US Needs to Redefine Poverty

By Francis Secada · November 02, 2015

The federal poverty line still uses a 1960s food-budget formula. That accounting choice decides who counts as poor — and whether a $7.25 wage is a floor or a trapdoor.

Does Health Insurance Improve Health?

By Francis Secada · May 19, 2015

Insurance reliably protects your finances. Whether coverage alone makes you healthier is a separate, harder question — and getting the rationale right changes how you design it.

How to Read a Program Evaluation

By Francis Secada · March 17, 2015

'Speed Kills' is a loud intuition. The 65-MPH speed-limit evaluations are a lesson in when a slogan holds, when it hides displacement, and how to let data discipline instinct.

Incrementalism as an Ethic

By Francis Secada · December 17, 2014

Public budgets get built from last year's base, not from zero. That is usually called a weakness. Under real uncertainty, small reversible steps are closer to wisdom.