In recent decades, the use of experimental and quasi-experimental methods has become widespread across a range of fields in economics, such as labor, education, health, and especially development. The emphasis on experimental and quasi-experimental methods was driven by an attempt to generate internally valid results, i.e., accurate estimates of the impact of the policy of interest in the time and place the experiment was implemented. But the now global scale of experiments points to the central question of external validity: to what extent and how can we generalize the knowledge generated by experiments beyond the setting of the experiment to other contexts?

Speakers:

• Susan Athey, Stanford University - "Heterogeneous Treatment Effects"
   
• Sylvain Chassang, New York University - “Designing RCTs with External Validity in Mind”
   
• Rajeev Dehejia, New York University - “A Thought Experiment: Seven Questions Regarding External Validity”
   
• Michael Kremer, Harvard University - “Thoughts on External Validity”
   
• Rohini Pande, Yale University - “Politics, Power and Proof: Asking the Right Questions”
   
• Cyrus Samii, New York University - “Evaluating Ex Ante Counterfactual Predictions Using Ex Post Causal Inference”

An RSVP is required for this event. Please RSVP by Monday, November 4th, by 5:00 pm. More more information, visit the Development Research Institute's website here.