In backdrop of Economics Nobel announcement, letter panning RCT surfaces

15 economists, including past Nobel laureates say relying on RCTs to guide welfare and aid spending will lead to short-term, superficial and misplaced policies

In the backdrop of the Nobel Prize in Economics being awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, an open letter by 15 other economists from 2018 has gained prominence. In the open letter, the economists, three of whom are themselves Nobel laureates, have criticized “randomized control trials”.

Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer have been awarded the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for their contribution to reviving development economics, particularly through the popularisation of “randomised control trials” (RCTs) that break larger questions about policy interventions into smaller, easier to test studies.

In a letter sent to British publication Guardian