How can public leaders and program managers use low-cost experiments — also knows as low-cost randomized controlled trials (RCTs) — to improve program results in government? In this blog post, rather than conducting an interview as I usually do, I provide a video overview of the topic and provide examples. An audio version is also available, above.
As I explain in the video, low-cost experiments use existing high-quality data that are already being collected, which can bring the cost of rigorous evaluation way down. As a result, low-cost experiments can be a valuable complement to more traditional evaluation approaches and open up more opportunities for program managers to experiment and learn what works.
Additional resource: An interview on the blog with Jon Baron of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy on “Rigorous program evaluation on a budget,” highlighting more examples of low-cost experiments, is located here.