Building Persistent Compliance with Labour Law: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Last registered on February 01, 2017

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Building Persistent Compliance with Labour Law: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0001987

Initial registration date

February 01, 2017

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

February 01, 2017, 11:59 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Australia

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Michael Hiscox

Affiliation

Harvard University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2017-02-01

End date

2017-06-30

Keywords

Governance, Labor

Additional Keywords

behavioural economics, minimum wage, audit, small business

JEL code(s)

D03 (Behavioural Microeconomics: underlying principles); J30 (Wages, Compensation, and Labor: General); Costs K42 (Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior: Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

The Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman, Australian Government, conducts proactive compliance campaigns, in which they conduct random audits of small businesses regarding their compliance with wage entitlements and record keeping obligations. This trial will test the effectiveness of incorporating behavioural insights into audit correspondence and other interventions on the rate of persistent compliance among small businesses after the audit.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Hiscox, Michael. 2017. "Building Persistent Compliance with Labour Law: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial ." AEA RCT Registry. February 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1987-1.0

Former Citation

Hiscox, Michael. 2017. "Building Persistent Compliance with Labour Law: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial ." AEA RCT Registry. February 01. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1987/history/13691

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The existing audit process has been modified to incorporate checklists, planning prompts, reminders and social norm information regarding compliance, as well as default sign-up to an educational tool in an additional trial condition.

Intervention Start Date

2017-02-01

Intervention End Date

2017-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Primary outcome: Compliance with payment of wage entitlements
Secondary outcome: Efficiency of audit process (costs in staff time) and client satisfaction

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The trial will involve1600-2000 small businesses randomised to four conditions measured at two points in time, six months apart.

Experimental Design Details

The trial will involve1600-2000 small businesses randomly assigned to four conditions, with outcomes measured at two points in time, six months apart. All businesses will be from the retail hair and beauty industries located in states on the East Coast of Australia.
The trial design includes one control condition in which businesses will not be audited initially, a second condition in which businesses are audited with standardised business-as-usual communications, a third audit condition incorporating the behaviourally-informed interventions identified above (checklists, reminders, a planning prompt, and social norming information), and a fourth condition incorporating the behaviourally-informed interventions as well as a default sign-up to an educational tool that supplies up-to-date information on labour laws (including award wages). All businesses will be audited a second time (or for the first time in the case of the control group) at follow-up after six months.

Randomization Method

Randomization done by a computer algorithm

Randomization Unit

Individual small businesses

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

N/A

Sample size: planned number of observations

1600-2000 businesses

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

400-500 businesses per trial arm.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

For overall proportion of compliant businesses: Assuming alpha =0.05, power =0.8, baseline compliance rate of 70%, with a sample size of 400 businesses per condition, the minimum detectable effect is an absolute increase in the proportion of compliant businesses by 8.62% to 78.62%.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB