It seems like one of the key implicit claims in the post is that growth effects are better/more important than level effects (e.g. The post says “Moreover, the vast majority of proponents of RD do not tackle the question of whether the interventions they assess increase economic growth.” which is true, but RD proponents often focus on level effects) . I think it would be good to state and argue for this point explicitly.
Relatedly, I think the anti-RD perspective advocated in this post require the claim that level effects don’t affect growth rates. If boosting someone’s assets or income leads to a persistent increase in their income growth, the RD-caused level effect also gets the growth benefits this post argues for. The low-level equilibrium trap is a pretty popular model which describes just this dynamic.
In my opinion, randomistas do not focus on growth at all, be it level effects or growth effects.
Though to be fair there’s this short passage in Duflo’s new book on this:
while we do not know when the growth locomotive will start, if and when it does, the poor will be more likely to hop onto that train if they are in decent health, can read and write, and can think beyond their immediate circumstances. It may not be an accident that many of the winners of globalization were ex-communist countries that had invested heavily in the human capital of their populations in the communist years (China, Vietnam) or countries threatened with communism that had pursued similar policies for that reason (Taiwan, South Korea).
Also we do say that “we do not think that the things assessed by RD do not increase economic growth at all: indeed some RD health interventions increase earnings and consumption later in life, and thus do increase growth to an extent. However, evaluating whether the effect size is trivial or not should be a top priority for proponents of RD.”
It seems like one of the key implicit claims in the post is that growth effects are better/more important than level effects (e.g. The post says “Moreover, the vast majority of proponents of RD do not tackle the question of whether the interventions they assess increase economic growth.” which is true, but RD proponents often focus on level effects) . I think it would be good to state and argue for this point explicitly.
Relatedly, I think the anti-RD perspective advocated in this post require the claim that level effects don’t affect growth rates. If boosting someone’s assets or income leads to a persistent increase in their income growth, the RD-caused level effect also gets the growth benefits this post argues for. The low-level equilibrium trap is a pretty popular model which describes just this dynamic.
In my opinion, randomistas do not focus on growth at all, be it level effects or growth effects.
Though to be fair there’s this short passage in Duflo’s new book on this:
Also we do say that “we do not think that the things assessed by RD do not increase economic growth at all: indeed some RD health interventions increase earnings and consumption later in life, and thus do increase growth to an extent. However, evaluating whether the effect size is trivial or not should be a top priority for proponents of RD.”