People often make a categorical distinction between randomized clinical trial data and other forms of data. Under this view the only information that can ground medical decision making is a large, multi-center, randomized clinical trial, and other study designs can only prove correlation, not causation. People who hold this view…

Let’s say you are a market-oriented dictator who is worried about Covid-19 and wants to reduce the size and number of social gatherings. You understand that gatherings generate a lot of value for your population and so you want a mechanism to ban the least valuable gatherings while allowing the…