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Randomized Controlled Trials of Public Policy

At IPPSR, we are underway building a comprehensive database full of policy-relevant research. A large focus of the database is to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of public policy experimentation. These studies enable causal inference by randomly assigning a policy intervention to some people or areas and comparing the results to a control group. So far, we are proud to have summarized roughly 60 published studies utilizing RCTs to examine the effects of policy implementation. These RCTs range in their focus, and can be categorized into 7 categories.

Voting Restrictions and Partisan Gain

For the past decade, the US has been riding a wave tightening voting regulations. These laws are passed in the name of righting the wrong of voting fraud and protecting the integrity of our electoral system. But one analysis of county records going back to 2000 found exactly ten reported cases of voting fraud, over a time-period with 146 million registered voters. What about popular stories of widespread fraud, usually containing accounts of dogs, dead people, and immigrants voting?

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