The Experimental Approach to Development Economics

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Annual Review of Economics, 2009, vol. 1, issue 1, 151-178

Abstract: Randomized experiments have become a popular tool in development economics research and have been the subject of a number of criticisms. This paper reviews the recent literature and discusses the strengths and limitations of this approach in theory and in practice. We argue that the main virtue of randomized experiments is that, owing to the close collaboration between researchers and implementers, they allow the estimation of parameters that would not otherwise be possible to evaluate. We discuss the concerns that have been raised regarding experiments and generally conclude that, although real, they are often not specific to experiments. We conclude by discussing the relationship between theory and experiments.

Keywords: randomized experiments; development economics; program evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (170)

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Working Paper: The Experimental Approach to Development Economics (2008)
Working Paper: The Experimental Approach to Development Economics (2008)
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