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The Case for Randomized Field Trials in Economic and Policy Research
Abstract
Social experiments have been used in research since the 1960s, yet the technique of controlled experimentation still arouses controversy among social scientists. The crucial element that distinguishes a controlled experiment from other forms of research is random assignment of treatment to the observational units of study. Because treatment differences in the sample occur as a result of random chance, the effects of the treatment on behavior can be measured with high reliability. This paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of experiments in comparison with other research techniques and describes the circumstances where randomized trials should be preferred over other methods.
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Citations
Cited by
Matching as an econometric evaluation estimator: Evidence from evaluating a job training programme
Heckman, J. J., Ichimura, H., & Todd, P. E. (1997) · The Review of Economic Studies · doi:10.2307/2971733 · Cited by 5,486
Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation
Imbens, G. W., & Wooldridge, J. M. (2009) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/jel.47.1.5 · Cited by 4,926
Does matching overcome lalonde’s critique of nonexperimental estimators?
A. Smith, J., & E. Todd, P. (2005) · Journal of Econometrics · doi:10.1016/j.jeconom.2004.04.011 · Cited by 3,176
Causal effects in nonexperimental studies: Reevaluating the evaluation of training programs
Dehejia, R. H., & Wahba, S. (1999) · Journal of the American Statistical Association · doi:10.1080/01621459.1999.10473858 · Cited by 2,395
Morduch, J. (1999) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/jel.37.4.1569 · Cited by 2,360
Metadata
- Authors
- Burtless, G.
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Perspectives
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 1995-05-01
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 63-84
- ISSN
- 0895-3309 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1975411855
- Cited by
- 341
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 9.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
