I can’t really tell what the article is about, but it appears to be saying that devoting alot of resources and talent to academic economists to do rigorous RCT evalutions of programs is ‘innefective’ or ‘inneficient’ (a waste). (I think the recent noble econ prizes were for this—so this might be critique of them.) I think the same point is often made of alot of rigorous economics—many view these as primarily aesthetic or mathematical excercizes which some economists value more than developement or economic policy.
I think there is a place for aesthetics, mathematics, RCTs and evaluations of them, as well as other forms of policy research and interventions.
But you sort of have to figure out what mix is the best.
I also don’t think the ‘smell tests’ are well worded. I think academic specialties often have their own dialects (as does EA) and they are often mutually almost incomprehnsible. Ecological economists and neoclassiclas often have different dialects, and the same theorem in math can be proven at times many ways, but people can only understand some of them,.
To clarify, Lant Pritchett is a development economist criticizing other development economists here. He’s the only person I’ve heard use “smell test” in this particular field, but it’s also a pretty common expression for applying “common sense” to check whether an idea seems good, across many different domains.
I was only commenting on the particular wording of the ‘smell test’ in devlopemntal economics—i use a smell test to decide if i need to throw food away which i try not to do, or wash clothes , or if somehow a dead mouse is in my apt—i leave mice alone but they are poisoned by what they eat or die of old age—i dont think they live very long—maybe 2 years
developmental economics (definately not my area) i associate with jeffrey sachs, william easterly, amartya sen, and partha dasgupta. one can add jagdish baghwati and more than i can remember. there are more recent ones. i just know these from books and articles. (there are math modelers, anti-globalization/neoliberalism activists, etc—they all have books and articles).
I can’t really tell what the article is about, but it appears to be saying that devoting alot of resources and talent to academic economists to do rigorous RCT evalutions of programs is ‘innefective’ or ‘inneficient’ (a waste). (I think the recent noble econ prizes were for this—so this might be critique of them.) I think the same point is often made of alot of rigorous economics—many view these as primarily aesthetic or mathematical excercizes which some economists value more than developement or economic policy.
I think there is a place for aesthetics, mathematics, RCTs and evaluations of them, as well as other forms of policy research and interventions.
But you sort of have to figure out what mix is the best.
I also don’t think the ‘smell tests’ are well worded. I think academic specialties often have their own dialects (as does EA) and they are often mutually almost incomprehnsible. Ecological economists and neoclassiclas often have different dialects, and the same theorem in math can be proven at times many ways, but people can only understand some of them,.
To clarify, Lant Pritchett is a development economist criticizing other development economists here. He’s the only person I’ve heard use “smell test” in this particular field, but it’s also a pretty common expression for applying “common sense” to check whether an idea seems good, across many different domains.
I was only commenting on the particular wording of the ‘smell test’ in devlopemntal economics—i use a smell test to decide if i need to throw food away which i try not to do, or wash clothes , or if somehow a dead mouse is in my apt—i leave mice alone but they are poisoned by what they eat or die of old age—i dont think they live very long—maybe 2 years
developmental economics (definately not my area) i associate with jeffrey sachs, william easterly, amartya sen, and partha dasgupta. one can add jagdish baghwati and more than i can remember. there are more recent ones. i just know these from books and articles. (there are math modelers, anti-globalization/neoliberalism activists, etc—they all have books and articles).