Salvatore Di Falco on Randomized Controlled Trials for Development: Evidence from a Double-Blind Field Experiment in Tanzania
- Supervisor
- Salvatore Di Falco - London School of Economics
- Date and time
- Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 12:15 PM - Aula C, Palazzo di Economia
- Contact person
- Marcella Veronesi
- External reference
- Publication date
- March 1, 2012
- Department
- Economics
Summary
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the social sciences are not double-blind, so participants know they are “treated” and will adjust their behavior accordingly. We implement a conventional economic RCT and a double-blind experiment in rural Tanzania (randomly allocating modern and traditional cowpea seed-varieties to farmers), and demonstrate that these effects can be large. For our case they explain the entire “treatment effect on the treated” as measured in a conventional economic RCT.
