A Theory of Experimenters

Banerjee, Abhijit; Chassang, Sylvain; Montero, Sergio; Snowberg, Erik

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3058579

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…a block-randomized design and stratify on (i) geographic location, (ii) treatment status in the previous property tax campaign, and (iii) past experience of the city chief with tax collection. 42 To avoid chance imbalances, we followed Banerjee et al (2017) and ran the full randomization 100 times, selecting the run with minimum t -statistics from a series of balance checks on eight variables. 43…”

Section: B Randomizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Elites as State Capacity: How City Chiefs Use Local Information to Increase Tax Compliance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Balan

Bergeron

Tourek

et al. 2022

American Economic Review

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This paper investigates the trade-offs between local elites and state agents as tax collectors in low-capacity states. We study a randomized policy experiment assigning neighborhoods of a large Congolese city to property tax collection by city chiefs or state agents. Chief collection raised tax compliance by 3.2 percentage points, increasing revenue by 44 percent. Chiefs collected more bribes but did not undermine tax morale or trust in government. Results from a hybrid treatment arm in which state agents consulted with chiefs before collection suggest that chief collectors achieved higher compliance by using local information to more efficiently target households with high payment propensities, rather than by being more effective at persuading households to pay conditional on having visited them. (JEL D73, D83, H24, H26, H71, O12, O17)

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Section: B Randomizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Elites as State Capacity: How City Chiefs Use Local Information to Increase Tax Compliance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Balan

Bergeron

Tourek

et al. 2022

American Economic Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…By implication, to justify a strong preference for an RCT one needs to attach some intrinsic value to randomization as an end in itself, and be willing to forgo accuracy in getting closer to the true mean impact. Advocates have sometimes fallen back on such methodological preferences, independently of precision in estimating impact; for example, Banerjee et al (2018) show that an RCT can still dominate as long as one puts a high enough weight on the welfare of those who prefer RCTs.…”

Section: Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Should the Randomistas (Continue to) Rule?

Ravallion

2020

SSRN Journal

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“…By implication, to justify a strong preference for an RCT one needs to attach some intrinsic value to randomization as an end in itself, and be willing to forgo accuracy in getting closer to the true mean impact. Advocates have sometimes fallen back on such methodological preferences, independently of precision in estimating impact; for example, Banerjee et al (2017b) show that an RCT can still dominate as long as one puts a high enough weight on the welfare of those who prefer RCTs.…”

Section: Foundations Of Impact Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Randomized Control Trials in the Field of Development

2020

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In October 2019, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer jointly won the 51st Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." But what is the exact scope of their experimental method, known as randomized control trials (RCTs)? Which sorts of questions are RCTs able to address and which do they fail to answer? This book provides answers to these questions, explaining how RCTs work, what they can achieve, why they sometimes fail, how they can be improved and why other methods are both useful and necessary. Chapters contributed by leading specialists in the field present a full and coherent picture of the main strengths and weaknesses of RCTs in the field of development. Looking beyond the epistemological, political, and ethical differences underlying many of the disagreements surrounding RCTs, it explores the implementation of RCTs on the ground, outside of their ideal theoretical conditions and reveals some unsuspected uses and effects, their disruptive potential, but also their political uses. The contributions uncover the implicit worldview that many RCTs draw on and disseminate, and probe the gap between the method's narrow scope and its success, while also proposing improvements and alternatives. This book warns against the potential dangers of their excessive use, arguing that the best use for RCTs is not necessarily that which immediately springs to mind, and offering opportunity to come to an informed and reasoned judgement on RCTs and what they can bring to development.

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A Theory of Experimenters

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Local Elites as State Capacity: How City Chiefs Use Local Information to Increase Tax Compliance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Local Elites as State Capacity: How City Chiefs Use Local Information to Increase Tax Compliance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Should the Randomistas (Continue to) Rule?

Randomized Control Trials in the Field of Development

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