Here's why I think there is some pushback against the most recent Nobel in economics.
You go into the science wanting to make some sort of big difference.
You want to end poverty or make billionaires face a lower tax burden or make capitalism work however you think is optimal within your worldview.
But what RCTs do is show the limits of the science. You can design mechanisms so more people are protected from malaria through smart incentive structure on mosquito nets.
And it saves lives! Saving lives is good. But it feels small bore.
If that's ALL the science can do, it gives lie to the grand ambitions you enter in the science with. By awarding a Nobel to the practitioners of RCTs in development, it is an admission that the limits have been reached.
For me this is the same as the limits of behavioral economics. I consciously construct nudges for myself after years of reading in that subfield.
The question is what can you do with it if you can't necessarily replicate it and use irrational actors breaking micro assumptions as a foundation to build new theory on?
You can help people save more for retirement. And you can make sure men pee in the toilet. One big, another small. But are we at the limit there? Where do we go from here?
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