What Can Experiments Tell Us About How to Improve Government Performance?

Abstract

Abstract:In recent years, experimental methods have been both highly celebrated, and roundly criticized, as a means of addressing core questions in the social sciences. They have received particular attention in the analysis of development interventions. This paper focuses on two key questions: (1) what have been the main contributions of RCTs to the study of government performance? and (2) what could be the contributions, and relatedly the limits? It draws inter alia on a new systematic review of experimental and quasi-experimental studies on governance to consider both the contributions and limits of RCTs in the extant literature. A final section introduces the studies included in this symposium in light of this discussion. Collectively, the studies push beyond polarized debates over experimental methods towards a new middle ground, considering both how experimental work can better address identified weaknesses and how experimental and non-experimental techniques can be combined most fruitfully.

Legal empowerment and group-based inequalilty

“…In many circles, impact and evidence-based policy have become synonymous with quantitative impact evaluation and, in particular, with randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and experiments more generally. The first implication of the present study, then, is that the limitations of experimental approaches (see Deaton 2010; Pritchett and Sandefur 2015) and the particular challenges in the area of governance broadly defined (Gisselquist 2015;Gisselquist and Niño-Zarazúa 2015) are perhaps greater than are generally supposed. As this collection of studies illustrates, changing legal institutions can be a slow process, and inequality responds to institutional reforms only with delay.…”

Legal Empowerment and Group-Based Inequality

“…In many circles, impact assessment Legal empowerment and group-based inequality 343 and evidence-based policy have become synonymous with quantitative impact evaluation and in particular with randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and experiments more generally. The first implication of the present study, then, is that the limitations of experimental approaches (see Deaton, 2010;Pritchett & Sandefur, 2015) and the particular challenges in the area of governance broadly defined (Gisselquist, 2015;Gisselquist & Niño-Zarazúa, 2015) are perhaps greater than are generally supposed. As this special issue illustrates, changing legal institutions can be a slow process, and inequality responds to institutional reforms only with delay.…”

Evidence-based Policy in India: Crossing the Long, Uphill Bridge

“…There is a tendency for experimental fanciness to take precedence over questions of the utility of research, to such an extent where evidence has begun to lose sight of its principal objective, that is, help policymakers by providing relevant information and insights. Gisselquist and Niño-Zarazúa (2015) suggest that unless the research is equipped to investigate critical questions of governance, social structure, institutions and social capital, policymakers will be left with precious little in terms of decision aids.…”