velasco99_Sarinya Pinngam  EyeEm_Getty Images_businessmen Sarinya Pinngam/EyeEm/Getty Images

Bipolar Economics

Randomized controlled trials are the flavor of the month in development economics, with their keenest advocates having just been awarded the Nobel Prize. But can this experimental approach really be counted on to produce better economic policies?

LONDON – How can we know if an economic policy is achieving its stated objective? Well, we can create two similar groups, randomly allocate the “treatment” to only one of them and measure the results. By comparing the groups, we will obtain a reliable estimate of how effective the policy is.

https://prosyn.org/SFsaC0y