Economists receive got surged into randomized experimental move inward the final few decades. From the 1970s, upwardly into the 1990s, such move was oftentimes focused on social policies, amongst experiments on unlike kinds of wellness insurance, labor preparation together with labor search, changes inward welfare rules, early on childhood education, together with others. More recently, such move has acquire rattling prominent inward the evolution economic science literature, every bit good every bit on a diverseness of focused economic science topics similar how incentive pay affects move or how charitable contributions could live increased. Running experiments is at 1 time purpose of the mutual tool-kit (for a small-scale taste, see here, here, here, and the three-paper symposium inward the Fall 2017 number of the Journal of Economic Perspectives on "From Experiments to Economic Policy").
Thus, economists together with other social scientists may notice it useful to move along some historical examples of randomization close at hand. Julian C. Jamison provides a trove of such examples inward "The Entry of Randomized Assignment into the Social Sciences" (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 8062, May 2017).
Jamison has a run-through of the classic examples of randomization over the centuries, which were oftentimes inward a medical context. For example, he quotes the correspondence betwixt poet/writers Petrarch and Boccaccio inward 1364, inward which Petrarch wrote:
"I solemnly affirm together with believe, if a hundred or a M men of the same age, same temperament together with habits, together amongst the same surroundings, were attacked at the same fourth dimension yesteryear the same disease, that if 1 one-half followed the prescriptions of the doctors of the diverseness of those practicing at the acquaint day, together with that the other one-half took no medicine but relied on Nature’s instincts, I receive got no doubt every bit to which one-half would escape."Or January Baptist van Helmont, a physician writing inward the outset one-half of the 1600s, proposed that the ii "cures" of the day--bloodletting vs. induced vomiting/defecation--be tested inward this way:
"Let us receive got out of the Hospitals, out of the Camps, or from elsewhere, 200 or 500 pitiful People, that receive got Fevers, Pleurisies, etc. Let us split them inward halfes, permit us cast lots, that 1 one-half of them may autumn to my share, together with the other to yours; I volition cure them without bloodletting… nosotros shall encounter how many Funerals both of us shall have."There are cases from the 1600s, 1700s, together with and 1800s of randomization every bit a means of testing for the effectiveness of treatments for scurvy, or smallpox, salt-based homeopathic treatments. Perhaps 1 of the best-known experiments was done yesteryear Louis Pasteur inward 1881 to evidence his vaccine for sheep anthrax. Jamison writes:
"He was attempting to publicly evidence that he had developed an creature anthrax vaccine (which may non receive got been his to start with), therefore he asked for lx sheep together with split them into 3 groups: 10 would live left solely alone; 25 would live given his vaccine together with and therefore exposed to a deadly strain of the disease; together with 25 would live untreated but also exposed to the virus .... [A]ll of the exposed but untreated sheep died, acre all of the vaccinated sheep survived healthily."There are LOTS of examples. But inward Jamison's telling, the earliest illustration of randomization inward an experiment inside a dependent champaign conventionally idea of every bit economic science was really done yesteryear ii non-economists working on game theory, psychologist Richard Atkinson together with polymath Patrick Suppes, inward move published inward 1957:
"Atkinson together with Suppes (1957), also non economists yesteryear training, analyzed unlike learning models inward two-person zero-sum games, together with they explicitly “randomly assigned” pairs of subjects into 1 of 3 unlike handling groups. This is the earliest instance of random assignment inward experimental economics, for purposes of comparison treatments, that has been flora to date."As to broader social experiments virtually the effects of policy interventions, the outset 1 goes dorsum to the 1940s:
"The outset clearly together with individually randomized social experiment was the Cambridge-Somerville youth study. This was devised yesteryear Richard Clarke Cabot, a physician together with pioneer inward advancing the champaign of social work. Running from 1942-45, the study randomized to a greater extent than or less 500 immature boys who were at adventure for delinquency into either a command grouping or a handling group, the latter receiving counseling, medical treatment, together with tutoring. Results (Powers together with Witmer 1951) were highly disappointing, amongst no differences reported."Back inward high school, nosotros had to pattern together with behavior out our ain experiment inward a psychology class. I wrote upwardly the same message (a asking for some saccharine together with meaningless information) on ii sets of postcards. One of the sets of postcards was typed; the other was handwritten. I chose the outset lx households inward the local telephone directory, together with sent the postcards out at random. My working hypothesis was that the typewritten notes would acquire a higher reply (perhaps because they would expect to a greater extent than "professional," but really the handwritten notes got a much higher reply (probably because they reeked of high schoolhouse student). Even at the time, it felt similar a light-headed piffling experiment to me. But the outcome felt powerful, nonetheless.
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