Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Random assignment: Random assignment is a method used in research where participants are placed into different groups by chance. This helps minimize bias and ensures each group is similar, allowing researchers to assess the true impact of an intervention or treatment. See also Method, Experiments._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Economic Theories on Random Assignment - Dictionary of Arguments
Parisi I 37 Randomized assignment/Economic theories/Gelbach/Klick: One approach to solving the problem of dependence between ε and P is to assign policy levels to units randomly. (>Economic models/Gelbach/Klick.) This approach, common in studies involving the effects of medical and psychological interventions, is frequently used in empirical economics (...).The advantage of random assignment is that it directly imposes the mean independence of ε and P, so that τ may be regarded as the causal effect of the policy, at least within the particular population studied experimentally. For this reason, it is common in the empirical economics literature to consider randomized controlled trials (RCTs) the conceptual benchmark against which other study types are measured. Parisi I 38 Randomized controlled trials/problems: This is surely too strong a claim, as Heckman and Smith (1995)(3) and Deaton (2010)(4) have ably discussed, because RCTs do have potentially important drawbacks. One drawback is that not all questions are susceptible to study using RCTs. RCTs cannot measure what are sometimes called “general equilibrium effects,” that is, effects that a policy change has to behavior outside the study’s domain of impact. Problem/VsRandom assignment: (...) suppose we want to measure the effect of liberal discovery rules on civil litigation costs in the federal courts. It is possible to randomly assign non-standard discovery rules to civil actions once they are filed in federal court. But it is not feasible to randomly assign rules regimes to the parties to future disputes. Thus random assignment can be used to measure only some determinants of civil litigation costs; RCTs simply cannot measure the effects of discovery rules on primary behavior—that is, people’s and firms’ behavior in contract formation, care-taking, and other walks of life that determine whether disputes emerge in the first place.* *Certain aspects of the U.S. justice system involve what might be termed non-experimental randomization. For example, in their study of whether the quality of legal representation matters in criminal cases, David Abrams and Albert Yoon use the fact that Nevada's Clark County Public Defender offce randomly assigns attorneys to incoming felony cases. Abrams and Yoon (2007)(1) find that attorney performance varies substantially along multiple characteristics, suggesting that attorney characteristics matter, at least in the public defender context. See also Anwar, Bayer, and Hjalmarsson (2012)(2). 1. Abrams, David and Albert Yoon (2007). “The Luck of the Draw: Using Random Case Assignment to Investigate Attorney Ability.” University of Chicago Law Review 74(4): 1145–1177. 2. Anwar, Shamena, Patrick Bayer, and Randi Hjalmarsson (2012). “The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 127(2): 1017–1055. 3.Heckman, James J. and Jeffrey A. Smith (1995) 4. Deaton, Angus (2010). “Instruments, Randomization, and Learning about Development.” Journal of Economic Literature 48(2): 424–455. Gelbach, Jonah B. and Jonathan Klick „Empirical Law and Economics“. In: Parisi, Francesco (ed) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Vol 1: Methodology and Concepts. NY: Oxford University Press._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Economic Theories Parisi I Francesco Parisi (Ed) The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts New York 2017 |
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> Counter arguments against Economic Theories
> Counter arguments in relation to Random Assignment
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-29