Randomized Control Trials

In randomized control trials (RCTs), there are two groups that are put on trial; control group and treatment group. The control group is a group that does not receive any treatment and is used as a benchmark during the trial, whereas the treatment group is the group put under trial to test out the outcomes. Banerjee and Duflo argued that many questions in development, including health, education, and microcredit can be settled by using randomized control trials. When it comes to observational studies, one should collect data, then correlate it using regression techniques. We are aware of the shortcomings such as omitted variables bias or reverse causality, therefore, in such studies, one must control many things however there are some things
The attendance of government nurses was 44% because they had no incentive to go to work as there were no monitoring and no punishments. The government decided to begin on appointing an extra nurse and Seva Mandir; an NGO began monitoring the extra nurse for 3 days a week. Moreover, the district administration punished nurses that had more than 50% absenteeism by deducting their pay and eventually suspending them. The monitoring system that was used was a machine that time stamped a sheet of paper to record the nurses’ attendance. As a result, the nurses viewed this experiment technique as a breach of their implicit contract which did not reduce their absenteeism in work but made it worse. On the other hand, an experiment was done to encourage immunization in rural India was successful. In 2003, only 2.64% of children in rural Udaipur were fully immunized while 57.7% of children had received no vaccinations at all. Seva Mandir increased the supply of vaccines in 60 villages and advertised the availability of immunization centers. In 30 villages, the treatment group, Mandir also tried to increase parental demand for immunization by providing families with 1 kg of dal; worth 40 rupees or $1.83, for every immunization they took and a set of plates if they take the complete immunization. Some concerns arose that the experiment will turn out to be
The education quality in developing countries is low is due to high teacher absences, high student absences, and low achievement. An experiment by Duflo that monitored the attendance of short-term contract teachers had a positive effect that improved performance. The experiment was conducted in government schools in India where teacher attendance was an issue. In the treatment group, teachers in 57 randomly selected schools were given cameras to take a picture of themselves in front of the children every day and their pay was made a function of attendance, as they got bonuses for their attendance. Whereas in the control group, teachers were paid their normal pay and were severely warned about attendance; bonuses were not included. As a result, the treatment schools’ teachers’ absence rates were 21% compared to 44% in the control group, this effect was long lasting as it lasted even after the experiment. The teachers did not try to outwit the system because random visits to schools by officials and the cameras’ records matched 80% of the cases. The experiment eliminated delinquent behavior and increased the number of teachers with high attendance records. The research suggests that it was the financial motivation; the bonuses that were given for attendance, that