Many development economists would argue that the most important innovation of

the last two decades has been a commitment to use only rigorous evidence for

policy, and usually what they mean is evidence generated by RCTs. But are

systematic reviews of the results a useful guide to policy? And should development

economics continue to be focusing so much on the programmes that flow from RCT-

driven research? Lant Pritchett of LSE talks to Tim Phillips about the nature of

“rigorous” evidence in development economics, and the future of the discipline itself.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-growth/rethinking-evidence-and-refocusing-growth-development-economics