EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The E-word – On the public acceptance of experiments

Mira Fischer, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Katharina Werner and Helen Zeidler

Economics Letters, 2024, vol. 235, issue C

Abstract: Randomized experiments are often viewed as the “gold standard” of scientific evidence, but people's skepticism towards experiments has compromised their viability in the past. We study preferences for experimental policy evaluations in a representative survey in Germany (N > 1,900). We find that a majority of 75 % supports the idea of small-scale evaluations of policies before enacting them at a large scale. Experimentally varying whether the evaluations are explicitly described as “experiments” has a precisely estimated overall zero effect on public support. Our results indicate political leeway for experimental policy evaluation, a practice that is still uncommon in Germany.

Keywords: Experiment aversion; Policy experimentation; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 H40 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176524000429
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The E-Word – On the Public Acceptance of Experiments* (2023) Downloads
Working Paper: The E-Word - On the Public Acceptance of Experiments (2023) Downloads
Working Paper: The E-Word – On the Public Acceptance of Experiments (2023) Downloads
Working Paper: The E-Word – On the Public Acceptance of Experiments (2019) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:235:y:2024:i:c:s0165176524000429

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111558

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:235:y:2024:i:c:s0165176524000429