AEA RCT Registry currently lists 11682 studies with locations in 170 countries.
This project aims to study the impact of a large one-time cash transfer to families with children who are accessing emergency homeless services. The project will evaluate how such a cash transfer impacts future homelessness and other indicators of housing stability. We also plan to study how the assistance affects recipients' self-reported well-being and mental health, labor market participation, use of other government programs, criminal justice contact, and children's educational outcomes.
Drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed in recent years, and many overdoses continue to involve prescribed medications like opioids and stimulants. At the same time, state prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), which help clinicians prescribe these medications safely, remain underused. In Minnesota, 32% of opioid prescriptions are written by clinicians who do not use the PDMP. In many states, including Minnesota, policymakers have limited tools to raise PDMP use even though it is often required under state law. To address this policy dilemma, we will test e-mails designed to facilitate PDMP use and evaluate their effects on PDMP use and controlled substance prescribing. Our work will include a projected 7,126 physician and physician assistant prescribers of opioids and other contr...
This project investigates whether and how the quality of healthcare interactions affects patient health behaviors and outcomes through a randomized controlled trial with healthcare providers, an AI chatbot, and patients in rural West Bengal, India. We will randomly assign providers to receive communication skills training and cross-randomize patient access to an AI chatbot for blood pressure management advice. This design allows us to examine: i) whether the nature of patient-provider interactions affects patient behavior, ii) how AI substitutes or complements provider communication; and iii) what specific elements of communication lead patients to update their beliefs. We study these questions in the context of hypertension management in India, where 28% of adults have hypertension, ye...
This project studies how individuals perceive debt-financed government spending and the factors shaping their support for it. We address three main questions: (i) What considerations and concerns do people raise when thinking about debt-financed spending? (ii) How do these concerns affect policy preferences? (iii) Are attitudes perspective-dependent, i.e. shaped by salient roles such as taxpayer or beneficiary of public goods? To answer these questions, we conduct two large-scale online surveys with representative samples from Germany. In the first survey (N=4,000), we dedicate 1,000 respondents to elicit first-order concerns through open-ended questions about arguments for or against debt-financed government spending, followed by questions on policy preferences and voting relevance....
Many Ethiopians migrate abroad through informal channels despite the availability of government-regulated formal pathways. This study examines whether structured information about formal and informal migration – combined with guided reflection on expected outcomes – affects migration decisions, method choice, and subsequent outcomes. We conduct a randomized controlled trial among women registered for overseas employment at government employment service centers. Treatment group participants receive an intervention embedded in the baseline survey that presents formal and informal migration scenarios, elicits expectations across multiple outcome dimensions, and displays these comparisons using interactive visual aids. Control group participants complete the baseline survey without this com...
We study how childcare and eldercare decision-makers respond to email inquiries from parents or children. In a US field experiment with daycare and eldercare centers, we send an email that varies (i) whether the message frames the situation as an exogenous emergency (“our caregiver is moving unexpectedly”), as an endogenous oversight (“we dropped the ball”), or does not specify a reason reason (ii) whether the sender is male or female (by using a male or female sounding name) and (iii) whether the sender is a single parent in the case of childcare. We measure if and how centers respond (reply rate and speed), whether they offer an appointment or a spot (and timing), and the tone/helpfulness of replies.
We estimate household willingness to pay for induction cookstoves in Cambodia. WTP will be estimated in 250 households using the incentive-compatible Becker-deGroot-Marschak mechanism which will elicit demand under real purchase conditions. We assess which household characteristics are associated with WTP.
We explore the mental models of the stock market among different groups of economic agents.
As generative AI (GAI) continues to reshape the labor market, it naturally affects students' occupational choice. Understanding how students navigate these evolving challenges is crucial for guiding future career decisions. While economic research highlights the influence of GAI on occupational search behavior, little is known about how students weigh GAI usage alongside key occupational attributes, including wage, automation risk, and continuous education requirements. Using a discrete choice experiment, we examine how GAI usage alongside i) the occupation's risk of automation, ii) continuing education needs and, iii) wage, shapes career preferences. Specifically, we investigate how occupational attributes affect the likelihood of an occupation being chosen and whether preferences dep...
A growing body of literature documents preferences for randomization in decision-making under risk. When faced with a choice between two lotteries, many experimental subjects prefer to delegate the decision to a coin flip. We propose a novel model in which individuals randomize to hedge against regret from unfavorable outcomes. This model explains puzzling findings in the literature, such as high rates of randomization even when one option first-order stochastically dominates the other. We test a distinct prediction in an online experiment: (1) subjects randomize more when prospects are more negatively correlated.