Executive summary: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in development economics are valuable for understanding the effectiveness of interventions, despite criticisms of their ethics and applicability.
Key points:
RCTs allow researchers to test the actual impact of interventions like water shutoffs or cash transfers, rather than relying on assumptions.
Criticisms of RCT ethics often ignore the existing suffering that RCTs aim to alleviate or the potential benefits of the research.
RCTs are crucial for determining not just if an intervention works, but how well it works compared to alternatives, which is important for resource allocation.
While RCTs have limitations in terms of the questions they can answer and the challenges of translating results into policy, they still provide valuable empirical evidence for decision-making.
Researchers should work to improve the informed consent process and ensure that participants feel fairly treated, while recognizing that perfect understanding may not always be feasible.
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Executive summary: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in development economics are valuable for understanding the effectiveness of interventions, despite criticisms of their ethics and applicability.
Key points:
RCTs allow researchers to test the actual impact of interventions like water shutoffs or cash transfers, rather than relying on assumptions.
Criticisms of RCT ethics often ignore the existing suffering that RCTs aim to alleviate or the potential benefits of the research.
RCTs are crucial for determining not just if an intervention works, but how well it works compared to alternatives, which is important for resource allocation.
While RCTs have limitations in terms of the questions they can answer and the challenges of translating results into policy, they still provide valuable empirical evidence for decision-making.
Researchers should work to improve the informed consent process and ensure that participants feel fairly treated, while recognizing that perfect understanding may not always be feasible.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.