Week 2: Randomized control trials

Instructions

What works? This week, we look at how RCTs identify the causal effects of policy innovations. Glennerster and Takavarasha provide a practically-minded introduction to RCTs in the context of development policy. Reading the two chapters, focus on understanding the concepts ‘causality’ and ‘randomization’ and how their interplay allows to assess if a policy works. In the seminar, we are going to discuss two RCTs (Chetty et al. 2018 and Hainmueller et al. 2019)

Required readings

• Glennerster, R. and K. Takavarasha. Running Randomized Evaluations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. DOI: 10.1515/9781400848447. Chapter 1-2.
• Chetty, R., N. Hendren, and L. F. Katz. “The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment”. In: American Economic Review 106.4 (2016), pp. 855-902. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150572.
• Hainmueller, J., D. Lawrence, J. Gest, et al. “A Randomized Controlled Design Reveals Barriers To Citizenship for Low-income Immigrants”. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115.5 (2018), pp. 939-944. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1714254115.

Further reading

• Gerber, A. S. and D. P. Green. Field Experiments. Design, Analysis, and Interpretation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.
• Duflo, E. and A. Banerjee. Poor Economics. Vol. 619. New York: PublicAffairs, 2011.
• Banerjee, A. V. and E. Duflo. Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to our Biggest Problems. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019.

Suggested media

Acknowledgments

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