A natural experiment is an empirical study in which the experimental conditions (i.e., which units receive which treatment) are determined by nature or by other factors out of the control of the experimenters and yet the treatment assignment process is arguably exogenous. Thus, natural experiments are observational studies and are not controlled in the traditional sense of a randomized experiment. Natural experiments are most useful when there has been a clearly defined and large change in the treatment (or exposure) to a clearly defined subpopulation (and no change to a comparable subpopulation), so that changes in responses may be plausibly attributed to the change in treatments (or exposure).
Natural experiments are considered for study designs whenever controlled experimentation is difficult, such as in many problems in epidemiology and economics.
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Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or experiment:
“Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers.”
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