After four decades of conducting randomised trials in social policy, Judith Gueron has dozens of maxims for researchers: ‘Never say that something about the research is too complex to get into.’ ‘If someone is unreservedly enthusiastic about the study, he or she doesn’t understand it.’ It’s hard-won wisdom, emerging from more than thirty large-scale social policy trials, involving a total of 300,000 participants.

Raised in Manhattan, Gueron attributes her ambition and confidence to having a father who told her ‘for as long as I can remember, that girls, and I in particular, could do anything’. In her work at MDRC, she would need this self-belief. Not only were the fields of economics and policy evaluation heavily male-dominated, but experiments were a radical idea. At that time, academics didn’t get tenure by doing randomised trials, but with complex mathematical models. MDRC was ‘a lonely band of zealots’.....

.....Taking over as MDRC president in 1986, Gueron became better at explaining to people who ran social programs why random assignment was fair. In one instance, a county commissioner continued random assignment after the research ended, seeing it as a just and unbiased way of choosing who would be assisted. Others weren’t so warm. In 1990 Florida legislator Ben Graber tried to shut down MDRC’s evaluation of ‘Project Independence’, an employment program. Random assignment, Graber said, was treating welfare recipients like ‘guinea pigs’. He foreshadowed legislation that would ban the use of control groups. The media was quick to pick up the story. Testifying in Florida, Gueron focused on the fact that the program had never been properly evaluated. ‘If we had a readily available wonder drug to help people be self-sufficient and off of welfare, I’m sure there isn’t a person in this room who would not use it. If Project Independence is that, I assume you would put more money into it. Since we don’t know that and the funds are not there, you would be wise to get the answers first.’ The legislature approved the trial. A few years later, the evaluation results were in: the employment program saved the taxpayer about as much as it cost to run. It wasn’t a wonder drug, but it was worth continuing.....

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