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With all due respect, this response by authors of the water RCT in Nairobi far from vilifies them. While disagreement is good generally, surprising that many #EconTwitter folks find this "reasonable".
Short thread. https://twitter.com/paul_gertler/status/1292353595526979586
Short thread. https://twitter.com/paul_gertler/status/1292353595526979586
1/5 To begin with, the authors have added further confusion by revising the most crucial bits of the response which clarifies whether large scale disconnections would've happened in the absence of the RCT or not. v1 suggested they were but updated version makes it ambiguous.
2/5 This is starting to become a standard response to criticism (remember evangelist RCT?), but to me, this is a non-issue. Irrespective of the local govt's intentions, just the idea of running an experiment which, as a result of the intervention, deprives..
... Kenyan slum residents access to something as basic & fundamental to existence seems unethical by most conceptions of ethics (particularly per the Kantian sense).
(3) Authors claim there were no adverse effects on child health and "political activism". Are the authors ...
(3) Authors claim there were no adverse effects on child health and "political activism". Are the authors ...
... essentially saying that it's "good" that the slum residents didn't didn't protest against the coercive policy?
If anything, this shows how interpretation of the "rigorous" results also involves making ethical judgements which get brushed under the carpet.
If anything, this shows how interpretation of the "rigorous" results also involves making ethical judgements which get brushed under the carpet.
(4) The authors first note that the ones not paying the bills are "wealthy landlords" and then go on to note that post the experimental phase, aggregate connections (with residents) were down by 3.6%.
Basically, slum residents bore the brunt of non-payment by landlords. How on earth is that "ethical"? Footnote in paper suggests non-payments were due to "inability to pay" by slum residents ...
The layers to the problematic power dynamics enmeshed in the experiment are amazing!
The layers to the problematic power dynamics enmeshed in the experiment are amazing!
(5) Lastly, the authors take an embarrassingly narrow view on what constitutes "ethics". Merely claiming that a few *observed* outcomes weren't harmed does not imply the study and the experiment was okay. Discussion should include, at the very least, lack of informed consent, ...
... legitimization of coercive policies, power dynamics of white researchers experimenting on African populations, and why is it okay to conduct an experiment that could deprive individuals of something as basic as water. None of this is even touched upon by the authors.
