Thread by @ingridharvold

A prize to be expected. Banerjee, Duflo & Kremer rely on key tenets of mainstream Econ. While founded on behavioral econ and assumption that tweaks to individual actions can alleviate global poverty, their work is often wrongly presented as purely empirical, objective & radical.

https://twitter.com/NobelPrize/status/1183681045591445504

A good a time as any to revisit some critiques of the body of work that this year's laureates have paved the way for. Last year, @farwasial and @cacrisalves wrote a critique of RCTs for @CriticalDev: Why Positive Thinking Won't Get You Out of Poverty 👇
developingeconomics.org/2018/11/09/why…

Angus Deaton and Nancy Cartwright's classic critique, which cautions against simple extrapolations from trials to other contexts, is also worth revisiting.

The Limitations of Randomised Controlled Trials 👇 voxeu.org/article/limita…

Last year leading economists argued in @guardian that the focus on micro-interventions associated with RCTs can do little to alleviate poverty if we fail to also tackle its root causes:

Buzzwords & Tortuous Impact Studies Won't Fix a Broken Aid System 👇
theguardian.com/global-develop…

Related is also Ben Fine et al's critique of behavioral approaches in development from 2015:

Nudging or Fudging 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

Martin Ravallion's (@MartinRavallion) review of Poor Economics is also worth a read. He questions how far Duflo and Banerjee's approach will get us in the fight against global poverty:

Fighting Poverty One Experiment at a Time 👇
jstor.org/stable/23269972

Sanjay Reddy's (@sanjaygreddy) critique questions the randomistas' ability to explain global poverty and their approach's "technocratic premises, its naïve view of politics and society, and its unselfconscious do-goodism". Check it out:

Randomise This! 👇
ras.org.in/randomise_this…

There's also @N_Kabeer's critique, which questions to what extent RCTs take human agency seriously. Here's an interview with her by @fp2p:

Naila Kabeer on Why Randomized Controlled Trials Need to Include Human Agency 👇

oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/naila-kab…

Jean Drèze's critique is also important, which critiques the concept of "evidence-based policy," arguing that the relation between evidence and policy needs further thought:

Evidence, Policy, and Politics 👇 ideasforindia.in/topics/miscell…

For a political economy perspective, see Bédécarrats (@BedecarratsF), Guérin & Roubaud's article. It explores how RCTs fit w/ contemporary scientific business models & interests of donor communities:

All That Glitters Is Not Gold 👇 doi.org/10.1111/dech.1…

@BedecarratsF Then there's @AHAkramLodhi's critique, which cautions against seeing individual and household choices in isolation from the overall socio-economic structure, dismissing the importance of power and privilege in structuring possibilities.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

@BedecarratsF @AHAkramLodhi This post by @N_Kabeer unpacks how Duflo's approach to gender is problematic. She concludes that perhaps Duflo needs to read some @FeministEcon.

"Esther Duflo on “Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development”: A Must-Read for Feminist Economists?"👇
feministeconomicsposts.iaffe.org/2013/12/19/est…