Randomizing Development: Method or Madness?

Resource type
Journal Article
Author/contributor
Title
Randomizing Development: Method or Madness?
Abstract
An important argument for the increased use of randomized control trial methods in development is that the evidence from these studies will encourage the uptake of effective programs and projects (both through discouraging ineffective projects and improving design of new projects) and this will lead to reduced poverty and improved human well-being. However, cross-national evidence shows that the four-fold transformation of national development, to higher productivity economies, to more responsive states, the more capable organizations and administration and to more equal social treatment produces gains in poverty and human well-being that are orders of magnitude bigger than the best that can be hoped from better programs. Arguments that RCT research is a good (much less “best”) investment depend on both believing in an implausibly low likelihood that non-RCT research can improve progress national development and believing in an implausibly large likelihood that RCT evidence improves outcomes.
Pages
32
Date
2019
Language
en
Library Catalogue
Zotero
Citation
Pritchett, L. (2019). Randomizing Development: Method or Madness? 32.