Esther Duflo is the most obviously deserving Nobel Prize in Economics pick in decades. Major substantive contributions to development economics coupled with being absolutely the vanguard of the credibility revolution.

The article seems to motivate criticism of RCTs in only the barest manner: "what of external validity?" No shit, Sherlock, which is why the credibility revolution also argues for frequent and cross-contextual replications. "RCTs present ethical quandaries in re denying the control group the benefits of a presumed good intervention". Again, duh. The problem is these presumed good interventions often aren't which is why the most resounding impact of RCTs is not proving treatments successful beyond our wildest dreams, but rather finding a series of disappointing and in some cases devastating null effects. Bringing up deworming is especially rich in light of the serious concerns raised by deworming RCTs about the value and effect.

It is also weird to talk about the credibility term solely or entirely in terms of RCTs. As economists often say RCTs are the gold standard, but there exist many silver standards and causal inference writ large and a broader concern with well identified pseudo-experimental or observational work has also developed thanks to the same forces and same people credited here.

Thank god for Esther Duflo. Oh, and her husband is a half decent economist too, I guess.