I have a question regarding cash transfers and more broadly the RCT-fication of Development Economics.
Some time ago, Abhijet Banerjee made a comment about a million RCTs as jigsaw pieces (might have remembered this quote incorrectly). Each RCT might not be that useful but together, they can create something huge.
I like RCTs and think the Credibility Revolution has been great. Yet, I also wonder that most economies operate like the Toyota process. Come up with a decent plan, start trying it out and keep constantly iterating. At some point, I wonder if all the RCTs might be trying to create a perfect system from the get-go instead of adapting it. The issues of basically identical RCTs for many regular academics with high cumulative expenditure and giving essentially the same answers we knew might also be a concern. My question is, from a very general perspective, have we gone too far towards the Micro-ification of Developmental Economics?
Cash transfers are great (and the article was a nice read), but would we have something better by combining all the money into a more ambitious project? And on average, how many of these big ideas would actually work?
While each RCT is marginally useful and the big ideas are potentially amazing, how would you all try to allocate funding towards the different categories Development studies?
Dear InDevelopment,
I have a question regarding cash transfers and more broadly the RCT-fication of Development Economics.
Some time ago, Abhijet Banerjee made a comment about a million RCTs as jigsaw pieces (might have remembered this quote incorrectly). Each RCT might not be that useful but together, they can create something huge.
I like RCTs and think the Credibility Revolution has been great. Yet, I also wonder that most economies operate like the Toyota process. Come up with a decent plan, start trying it out and keep constantly iterating. At some point, I wonder if all the RCTs might be trying to create a perfect system from the get-go instead of adapting it. The issues of basically identical RCTs for many regular academics with high cumulative expenditure and giving essentially the same answers we knew might also be a concern. My question is, from a very general perspective, have we gone too far towards the Micro-ification of Developmental Economics?
Cash transfers are great (and the article was a nice read), but would we have something better by combining all the money into a more ambitious project? And on average, how many of these big ideas would actually work?
While each RCT is marginally useful and the big ideas are potentially amazing, how would you all try to allocate funding towards the different categories Development studies?
I posted it on April 1st but the post appeared on the forum April 2nd. Does this still count as an April Fools post?