Thomas D. Cook, a professor of sociology, psychology, education, and social policy at Northwestern University, criticizes education researchers’ reluctance to perform randomized experiments. He points ...

A new statistical tool can help researchers get meaningful results when a randomized experiment, considered the gold standard, is not possible. A new statistical tool can help researchers get ...

The Annals of Statistics, Vol. 42, No. 3 (June 2014), pp. 850-871 (22 pages) We propose a consistent estimator of sharp bounds on the variance of the difference-in-means estimator in completely ...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 113, No. 27 (July 5, 2016), pp. 7383-7390 (8 pages) We provide a principled way for investigators to analyze ...

The U.S. Department of Education and a national government-policy group have issued a practical guide aimed at taking some of the mystery out of the national push for “evidence based” education. The ...

In 1997, the Mexican government launched a bold anti-poverty experiment in seven poor, rural states. The government’s idea was to give cash payments to mothers who met two key conditions: They had to ...

Randomized experiments have long been a cornerstone of scientific research. And many tech companies run randomized tests to learn from the huge amounts of data their customers generate. In 2019, ...

Dean Yang is a professor in the Department of Economics and the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Dean’s doctoral research was based on a natural experiment: variation in ...

The number-one job of a marketer is to invest budget wisely to drive sales. That inherently requires accurately measuring the performance of that spending. Yet most advertisers still rely on flawed ...

If you want to help people start a business, it’s better to give them a loan than a handout. If you want to prevent the spread of HIV and unwanted pregnancies, teach people about safe sex and make ...