Incorporating ethics and welfare into randomized experiments.

Authors :: Narita Y
Source :: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A] 2021 Jan 05; Vol. 118 (1).
Publication Year :: 2021
Abstract: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) enroll hundreds of millions of subjects and involve many human lives. To improve subjects' welfare, I propose a design of RCTs that I call Experiment-as-Market (EXAM). EXAM produces a welfare-maximizing allocation of treatment-assignment probabilities, is almost incentive-compatible for preference elicitation, and unbiasedly estimates any causal effect estimable with standard RCTs. I quantify these properties by applying EXAM to a water-cleaning experiment in Kenya. In this empirical setting, compared to standard RCTs, EXAM improves subjects' predicted well-being while reaching similar treatment-effect estimates with similar precision.<br />Competing Interests: The author declares no competing interest.<br /> (Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)

Subjects :: Causality
Humans
Models, Theoretical
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic methods
Research Design
Research Subjects statistics & numerical data
Human Experimentation ethics
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ethics
Research Subjects psychology

Language :: English
ISSN :: 1091-6490
Volume :: 118
Issue :: 1
Database :: MEDLINE
Journal :: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publication Type :: Academic Journal
Accession number :: 33443151
Full Text :: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008740118