Liszt set up a programme in chicago to explore incentives for students, parents and teachers that would produce the biggest educational gains. He says policy makers should have over sampled bad teachers rather than hiring best of everything. If you want to keep the budget the same, sure, you can bust the budget, but with the same budget will i have the same voltage? And the fact is, i won't.
In a new book called The Voltage Effect, the economist John List — who has already revolutionized how his profession does research — is trying to start a scaling revolution. In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, List teaches us how to avoid false positives, how to know whether a given success is due to the chef or the ingredients, and how to practice “optimal quitting.”