Esther Duflo Wins Clark Medal
23 April 2010 at 3:07 pm Peter G. Klein 3 comments
| Peter Klein |
Congratulations to MIT’s Esther Duflo for winning the John Bates Clark Medal. (NB: Unlike Richard T. Ely, J. B. Clark was actually a great economist.) Duflo is a pioneer in the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which, along with natural experiments, is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to conventional regression models. Interestingly, the WSJ reports that Harvard’s Sendhil Mullainathan, another RCT person, was also on the short list. Given the extreme faddishness of social scientists we can expect a wave of RCT centers, experiments, and papers in the next few years.
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Entry filed under: - Klein -, Methods/Methodology/Theory of Science, People.
Organizations and Markets 
1.
srp | 23 April 2010 at 7:03 pm
“Given the extreme faddishness of social scientists we can expect a wave of RCT centers, experiments, and papers in the next few years.”
Interesting hypothesis. Maybe the Clark panel is performing an experiment on the profession. What would the IRB say?
2.
Parag Waknis | 23 April 2010 at 7:40 pm
funny coincidence. just finished browsing through Deaton’s take on the randomization craze before I stumbled on this news on your blog.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/cheawb/1128.html
3.
Peter Klein | 24 April 2010 at 1:57 am
Parag, thanks for the pointer. Steve, that’s great — an experiment about experiments! Have you seen the Hitler bunker parody in which Hitler is screaming about the Hitler bunker parodies?