Winning the Fight Against Global Poverty One Experiment at a Time?
AbstractThe Economics Nobel 2019 for Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty has been received by economists with a wide array of reactions. This article introduces the experimental revolution in development economics and the work of Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer and then discusses a number of critiques that have been raised about it: methodological concerns relating to the internal and external validity of experiments in economics; a supposed focus of RCTs on the microlevel and a distraction of development economics away from structural issues; the scope of experimental research for poverty reduction; and normative concerns arising when experiments are used in development economics.