RCTs are obviously a valuable tool for economics, and it deserves a bigger role than it's gotten historically. After the Nobel Prize, RCTs will probably get mor

RCTs are obviously a valuable tool for economics, and it deserves a bigger role than it's gotten historically. After the Nobel Prize, RCTs will probably get more attention than they merit for a while. Ultimately, there's a very limited set of economic topics that they can be used to illuminate. Based on the discussions I've had with economists since early October, I feel like we're about to see a lot of effort to push them to and beyond their limits, at the expense of the silver standards you mention. Mind you, I don't think that's a huge problem, and it's better than the original state of zero RCTs. But academia has its own fashions, just like anywhere else.