latin-america-financial-development-lab

Doctoral Committee Evaluation

This is an intentionally rigorous, non-complacent evaluation of the repository as a doctoral or Research Assistant portfolio artifact.

Scientific quality: 8/10

Strengths. Honest reconstruction, clear research questions, literature framing

Weaknesses. Annual equivalents cannot answer sector-credit allocation questions

Future improvement. Rebuild regulator-level monthly panels

Methodological quality: 8/10

Strengths. PCA, clustering, sensitivity and fixed effects added

Weaknesses. No causal identification design

Future improvement. Use reforms or regulatory shocks for identification

Reproducibility: 9/10

Strengths. Scripted public-data pipeline and documented source audit

Weaknesses. PowerShell chosen because R/Python unavailable locally

Future improvement. Port final pipeline to R/Python once runtime is available

Visualization: 8/10

Strengths. Publication-oriented figure set and dashboard

Weaknesses. Static charts are less flexible than a full Shiny/Plotly deployment

Future improvement. Deploy interactive version

Programming: 7/10

Strengths. End-to-end automation under constrained runtime

Weaknesses. Large PowerShell script is less elegant than modular R/Python package

Future improvement. Refactor into modules with tests

Documentation: 9/10

Strengths. README, methodology, reconstruction log, replication guide

Weaknesses. Some legacy scripts remain as archival material

Future improvement. Add architecture diagram and API docs

Academic portfolio value: 9/10

Strengths. Shows integrity, empirical judgment and communication

Weaknesses. Would be stronger with original micro/regulator panel

Future improvement. Add country case study

Research Assistant value: 9/10

Strengths. Data recovery, QA, public-data workflows and reproducible outputs

Weaknesses. Needs more code modularity for team handoff

Future improvement. Add CI tests

Doctoral admissions value: 8/10

Strengths. Strong applied-economics narrative and methodological reflection

Weaknesses. Not yet a causal research paper

Future improvement. Develop identification strategy and submit as working paper