Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday August 16 2015, @12:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the {a[1]="witty";a[2]="insightful";a[3]="informative";print a[int(3*rnd(0)+1)]} dept.

A new generation of economists is trying to transform global development policy through the power of randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
...
"We have learned something about why immunization rates are low," says Esther Duflo, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, who was involved in the 2010 experiment and is working with Haryana [India] on its latest venture. The problem is not necessarily that people are opposed to immunization, she says. It is that certain obstacles, such as lack of time or money, are making it difficult for them to attend the clinics. "And you can balance that difficulty with a little incentive," she says.

This is one of a flood of insights from researchers who are revolutionizing the field of economics with experiments designed to rigorously test how well social programmes work. Their targets range from education programmes to the prevention of traffic accidents. Their preferred method is the randomized trial. And so they have come to be known as the 'randomistas'.

... the randomista movement is gaining momentum (see 'Scale the heights'). Universities are pumping out more economics graduate students with experience in RCTs every year. Organizations ranging from the UK Department for International Development to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington, are throwing their financial support behind the technique. "There are hundreds and hundreds of randomized trials going on, and ten years ago that just wasn't the case," says economist Dean Karlan at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who is at the forefront of the movement. "We've changed the conversation."

Can adopting more rigorous practices from the physical sciences work for economics and economic policy?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:03AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:03AM (#223423) Journal

    Cheap incentive = bribery. I don't know how you can say otherwise. When our children were little, we would entice them to do things, like clean up their rooms, with the promise of a coveted dessert. But, we were honest with ourselves, as well as with the kids. It was bribery, and we used the word "bribe".

    Funny thing about honesty - if you can't be honest with yourself, then you can't possibly be honest with the world at large.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:25AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:25AM (#223429) Journal

    The funny thing about people that are dirt poor - they need an incentive to do things that they wouldn't normally go out of their way to do:

    “We have learned something about why immunization rates are low,” says Esther Duflo, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, who was involved in the 2010 experiment and is working with Haryana on its latest venture. The problem is not necessarily that people are opposed to immunization, she says. It is that certain obstacles, such as lack of time or money, are making it difficult for them to attend the clinics. “And you can balance that difficulty with a little incentive,” she says.

    Haryana: 2nd highest per capita income state of India. How high? 2013-14: 132,089 rupees or USD $2,028.

    The incentive in the article is not bribery and not a crime. If they don't go out and get the shots, they don't get the sugar/oil, and that's that. If your kids refused the dessert, they still had a messy room and (I'll assume) punishment waiting for them. The clinic-parent interaction is also few-to-many. They relied on word of mouth to help spread the news and get more people vaccinated. Compare to an individual paying a bribe to receive a government service that is free by law, or to have a minor crime overlooked by the police, or to end a police shakedown.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @04:54AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @04:54AM (#223454)

    "Bribery" typically only refers to giving cash "donations" in exchange for favors, which is why lobbyists buying expensive vacations, dinners, hookers, drugs, etc, as "gifts" for political representatives isn't classified as bribery (even though everyone knows it is). While technically you could say that sugar could count as a "bribe" to get immunized, its not a very useful or expensive bribe and its not to convince them to do something they shouldn't be doing, its not even really getting them to do a favor for the "bribe-giver", its merely a minor incentive to get them to do something they need to do for everyone's benefit.