More Than Good Intentions : How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty

Edward Miguel and Michael Kremer Pioneered a new kind of development research in their 2004 study of a school deworming program in Kenya. Their experimental design incorporated the random assignment of primary school students to either a treatment or a control group for receiving medicine to eliminate intestinal parasites. Findings revealed significant benefits to the treatment group in not only improved health but also lowered school absences (Miguel and Kremer 2004). One policy consequence was an increased awareness for more evidence-based decision making under the banner of accountability reform in international development.1 The driving focus for such reform is rigorous scientific investigation — what some call the "gold standard" of methodology — that uses randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to establish a credible link between an intervention and a set of outcomes. Disciplines Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Education | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | International and Comparative Education This review is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn. edu/literacyorg_articles/7 Comparative Education Review, vol. 58, no. 1. 2013 by the Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved. 0010-4086/2014/5801-0007$10.00 166 February 2014 Essay Review Gold Standard? The Use of Randomized Controlled Trials for International Educational Policy NATHAN M. CASTILLO AND DANIEL A. WAGNER Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo. New York: PublicAffairs, 2011. 303 pp. $26.99. Making Schools Work: New Evidence on Accountability Reforms by Barbara Bruns, Deon Filmer, and Harry A. Patrinos. Human Development Perspectives. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011. 268 pp. $35.00. More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics Is Helping to Solve Global Poverty by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel. New York: Dutton, 2011. 308 pp. $26.95. Edward Miguel and Michael Kremer pioneered a new kind of development research in their 2004 study of a school deworming program in Kenya. Their experimental design incorporated the random assignment of primary school students to either a treatment or a control group for receiving medicine to eliminate intestinal parasites. Findings revealed significant benefits to the treatment group in not only improved health but also lowered school absences (Miguel and Kremer 2004). One policy consequence was an increased awareness for more evidence-based decision making under the banner of accountability reform in international development. The driving focus for such reform is rigorous scientific investigation—what some call the “gold standard” of methodology—that uses randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to establish a credible link between an intervention and a set of outcomes. Increasingly, major agencies and specialized evaluation committees are pressuring the field of education development to include such methods as a way to buttress scientific and policy arguments. This review takes a closer look at three recent publications that present complementary versions of this evidence-based (EB) perspective to indentify strengths and limitations for making policy decisions in low-income countries (LICs). While the increased use of empirical and credible results is always welcome toward the broad goal 1 Over the years, a number of organizations, such as the US Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse, the Campbell Collaboration, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, and the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, have pioneered efforts in identifying, assessing, and promoting evidence-based research for policy making within the domain of education.