The Center for Evaluation and Development (C4ED) successfully hosted a research workshop on Rigorous Research in Development Economics in November 2017, in Mannheim (Germany).
Impact evaluation of policy reforms has gained increasing importance in the recent fifteen years with a conspicuous increase in RCTs as well as other rigorous evaluation methods, particularly in the field of development economics, where large-scale RCTs are widespread nowadays. This development also led to a closer interaction between theory, empirical research, and primary data collection, with innovative econometric methods being developed and tested, which are often tailored to specific impact evaluations.
Presentations were given by renowned experts in their fields, including Santiago Levy (Vice President of Interamerican Development Bank), Marie Gaarder (3ie), Craig McIntosh (San Diego), Jo Puri (Green Climate Fund), Imran Rasul (UCL), Klaus Deininger (World Bank), Kosuke Imai (Princeton), Stefano Caria (Oxford), Karthik Muralidharan (San Diego), Pedro Carneiro (ULC), Karen Macours (PSE), Markus Frölich (Mannheim/C4ED), Eliana La Ferrara (Bocconi), Markus Goldstein (Worldbank), Bruno Crepon (CREST) and several researchers from Mannheim at C4ED.
The workshop concluded with a vibrant panel discussion on the role of impact evaluations in terms of policy relevance and scientific rigor.