At best, an RCT yields an unbiased estimate, but this property is of limited practical value. Finding out whether an estimate was generated by chance is more difficult than commonly believed. Contrary to frequent claims in the applied literature, randomization does not equalize everything other than the treatment in the treatment and control groups, it does not automatically deliver a precise estimate of the average treatment effect (ATE), and it does not relieve us of the need to think about (observed or unobserved) covariates. We argue that the lay public, and sometimes researchers, put too much trust in RCTs over other methods of investigation. Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are increasingly popular in the social sciences, not only in medicine.
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