The Theory and Practice of Field Experiments

Overview

Over the past decade, EGAP has organized Learning Days workshops with the aim of building experimental social-science research capacity among principal investigators (PIs) – both researchers and practitioners – in Africa and Latin America. By sharing the practical and statistical methods of randomized field experiments with workshop participants, the Learning Days effort hopes to identify and nurture researcher networks around the world and to create strong, productive connections between these researchers and EGAP members.

The Learning Days workshops are a combination of design clinics, research presentations, guided work with statistical software, and topical lectures by a small group of instructors, largely professors and PhD students from the EGAP network. The workshops focus on methods for the design and analysis of randomized experiments in the field rather than on randomized experiments in the lab or non-randomized studies.

This book grew out of a desire to share the materials we developed for the Learning Days. The current version is written primarily for instructors and organizers of similar workshops and courses aimed at PIs — i.e., professors, post-doctoral fellows, PhD students, and NGO/government agency evaluators — who will implement randomized studies of programs related to institutions, governance, and development. Much of the material will also be useful as a refresher for past participants of the Learning Days workshops.

The book was written by EGAP members Jake Bowers, Maarten Voors, and Nahomi Ichino. It was translated into Spanish by Lily Medina, and into French by Alyssa Heinze.

Access the Book

This book is a comprehensive overview of causal inference methods for researchers developing an experimental research design. It is organized in modules and covers topics such as causal inference, randomization, hypothesis testing, estimands, estimators, statistical power, measurement, threats to internal validity, and the ethics of experimentation.

Learn More

To learn more about the rationale behind the book, and to hear from the book’s authors about how it is organized, please refer to the video below. This video was taken from the book launch event in March 2021.