It is widely agreed that randomized controlled trials - social experiments - are the gold standard for evaluating social programs. There are, however, many important issues that cannot be tested using social experiments, and often things go wrong when conducting social experiments. This paper...

Good data on the size and composition of the independent contractor workforce are elusive, with household survey and administrative tax data often disagreeing on levels and trends. We carried out a series of focus groups to learn how self-employed independent contractors speak about their work....