Probing the Paradox of the RCT Craze in International Development

In this blog post Robert Picciotto agreed to explain the main ideas of the RCT craze in international development in this guest blog. Robert (“Bob”) was previously Director General, Evaluation, at the World Bank and is now a Visiting Professor at King’s College, London.

The growing popularity of randomised control trials (RCTs) in the international development domain is not accidental. It reflects tensions within an economics profession humbled by the failure of standard development recipes. It is also the result of a well funded campaign aimed at raising the bar in development evaluation quality that has unfortunately backed the wrong horse.