Join us on 10 November at 16:00 as François Roubaud and Isabelle Guérin join the WIDER
Webinar
Series<https://www.wider.unu.edu/node/237129>29>. During this special 75 minute
session they will launch their new
book<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/randomized-control-trials-i…
on the role of randomized control trials (RCT) in development.
Full details on the event page:
https://www.wider.unu.edu/event/fran%C3%A7ois-roubaud-and-isabelle-gu%C3%A9…
COVID-19 and the role of RCTs in development
In October 2019, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer jointly won the 51st
Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel “for their
experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” But what is the exact scope of their
experimental method, known as randomized control trials (RCTs)? Which sorts of questions
are RCTs able to address and which do they fail to answer? The edited volume Randomized
Control Trials in the Field of Development: A Critical
Perspective<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/randomized-control-t…ng=en&>,
just published, provides answers to these questions. The book explains how RCTs work, what
they can achieve, why they sometimes fail, how they can be improved and why other methods
are both useful and necessary.
The book includes contributions from specialists with a range of backgrounds and
disciplines, including two other winners of the Nobel Economics Prize.
In short, and even though the book gives voice to contrasting opinions, it shows that the
potential of RCTs is much more limited than imagined, generates various perverse effects,
and raises fundamental ethical questions. The COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to test
these conclusions, and question the use but also the limitations of the method.
Gulzar Natarajan and Rachel M. Gisselquist will join the session as discussants. Rachel
Gisselquist will be sharing insights from a recent Journal
Article<https://www.wider.unu.edu/node/493> on the potential of trials in measuring
government performance.
Register
here<https://www2.wider.unu.edu/crm/content/webinar-series-10-november&g…
For more details please contact
richardson@wider.unu.edu<mailto:richardson@wider.unu.edu>
Ruby Richardson
Communications Assistant
United Nations University World Institute for
Development Economics Research
Phone +358 (0)9 615 99257
Email richardson(a)wider.unu.edu Web
wider.unu.edu
Katajanokanlaituri 6 B, FI-00160 Helsinki, Finland
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