Economics
Estimating Causal Effects with Natural Experiments in Social Research
Quick fact
The 1990s Romanian anti-abortion decree, which banned abortion for nearly two decades, created a natural experiment showing that children born into unwanted circumstances had lower educational and labor market success decades later.
Why this is interesting
Imagine if you could flip a coin to decide who gets a policy and who doesn't, but in real life, without a lab. How do researchers find those natural coin flips in the messiness of the real world?