Microfinance RCTs in development: miracle or mirage ?

Florent Bédécarrats, Isabelle Guérin and François Roubaud

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Abstract: Microcredit has long stood as a flagship topic for RCTs in development, starting with the publication of a special issue in a leading economics journal on six RCTs conducted in different world regions. This special issue was hailed as the first rigorous and conceivably definitive study on the impacts of microcredit. However, a detailed exploration of the implementation of these six RCTs reveals many limitations with respect to internal and external validity, ethics, and interpretation. This chapter uses analytical tools from statistics, political economy, and development anthropology to discuss the extent to which the entire RCT chain strays from the ideal RCT principles (from sampling, data collection, data entry and recoding, estimates and interpretation to publication and dissemination of results). It also raises questions about the disparity between the academic and political success of this special issue and the many inconsistencies of method.

Keywords: randomized control trial (RCT); microcredit; replication; developing countries; internal validity; external validity; statistics; sociology of sciences; political economy; MAROC; ETHIOPIE; MONGOLIE; INDE; MEXIQUE; BOSNIE HERZEGOVINE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Bédécarrats, F. (ed.); Guérin, Isabelle (ed.); Roubaud, François (ed.). Randomized control trials in the field of development : a critical perspective, Oxford University Press, pp.186-226, 2020, 978-0-19-886536-0. ⟨10.1093/oso/9780198865360.003.0009⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03409457

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198865360.003.0009

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