AEA RCT Registry currently lists 12717 studies with locations in 171 countries.
This study examines the role of parental misperceptions and information gaps in contributing to the persistently high rates of child undernutrition in India. It is guided by two core hypotheses: 1) Parents systematically overestimate the nutritional status of their children (if parents form expectations about how healthy their child is by observing other children around them, then parents in areas with high levels of stunting and wasting may be more likely to believe that their own child is relatively healthy), and 2) Parents systematically underestimate the returns to child nutrition on long-term health, education, and labor market outcomes. These misperceptions, if proven true, may create a suboptimal equilibrium for child nutrition outcomes, trapping families in a cycle of inadequate...
This study evaluates a new approach to community-based forest management, “Competition for Ecosystem Services” (CES), which introduces competitive incentives into a traditional Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) framework. CES creates an internal competitive structure among participating communities, rewarding those that demonstrate relatively greater conservation achievements. We implement a randomized controlled experiment with 60 Village Common Forests (VCFs) in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, randomly assigned to CES, PES, or a control group. Forest carbon stocks are measured before and after the intervention using drone-based multispectral imagery, calibrated with ground-plot biomass data. Carbon conservation serves as the primary outcome and is estimated at the 30 m × ...
Previous research has shown that Chat2Learn (C2L), a text-message based program delivering conversational prompts for parents to use with their children, can positively impact children's vocabulary. This study evaluates two different modalities of C2L, both delivered via text message. In the first modality, the static version, parents only receive predetermined prompts. In the second, the AI modality, parents receive the same prompts along with unlimited AI-generated responses. We will conduct a randomized controlled trial with approximately 1,000 parents of children aged 3 to 6 across the United States. Parents will be randomly assigned to either the static or AI modality of C2L. The study will assess which modality generates more engagement from parents, as measured by opt-out and res...
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Chat2Learn-AI for boosting the quantity and quality of parent-child language use. Chat2Learn-AI is a messaging program enhanced by large language models (LLMs) that delivers both static and dynamic, on-demand conversation prompts with illustrations to parents, tailored to children’s interests as indicated by parent-recorded child responses to program prompts. The project will consist of a sample of 200 parents of kindergarten children, who will be randomized into the treatment and control groups. Parents in the treatment group will get access to Chat2Learn-AI, while parents in the control group will remain business-as-usual. The study will evaluate the impact of Chat2Learn-AI on 1) the quantity and quality of syntax, sentiment, linguistic...
We design an experiment to assess the relative effectiveness of human mentors versus AI-powered chatbots in motivating students to pursue a teaching career in Chile. We work with Elige Educar, a Chilean NGO that implements a mentoring program for students interested in education or related fields. Participating high school students are randomly assigned to one of three groups: a group that re- ceives support from a human mentor via WhatsApp; a group that receives support from an AI-powered chatbot, also through WhatsApp; and a passive control group that receives no support. We assess the effectiveness of each treatment in motivating students to register for an education major through Chile’s centralized university admissions process. Beyond addressing Chile’s immediate teacher recruitme...
The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) has partnered with a partner organization to evaluate their newly developed model of Bundled Rapid Rehousing, an intervention designed to combine their standard rapid rehousing program with wraparound case management services in the areas of asset building and employment. To evaluate the program, we will use a randomized control trial (RCT) design to test the hypothesis that the program improves housing and financial stability after program completion. Those who are eligible for the intervention and consent to the study will be randomized into treatment and control groups, with the treatment group receiving the new Bundled Rapid Rehousing model, while the control group receives Heartland’s standard rapid rehousing program. Results ...
Despite growing recognition that socio-emotional skills are critical for human capital development, evidence on whether public school systems can deliver such skills at scale in low-resource settings remains scarce. We evaluate an arts-integrated social-emotional learning (SEL) program embedded in compulsory art classes in government schools in Punjab, India. The intervention by Punjab’s State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) provides 3 days of teacher training and an SEL-integrated art curriculum aligned with India’s National Education Policy. We implement a school-level cluster randomized controlled trial across 200 government schools and approximately 5400 Grade 6 students. The study tests whether holistic skills can be cultivated through existing instructional time...
Integration agreements between job seekers and public employment services define mutual obligations for labor market integration, including job search requirements and the conditions under which compliance is monitored and sanctioned. We study how the content and framing of these agreements affect job search behavior and labor market outcomes in the context of the French “Contrat d'Engagement” (Engagement Contract), a mandatory integration agreement signed by job seekers and caseworkers upon registration with the French public employment service, France Travail. The agreement includes a personalized action plan specifying activities to support labor market integration. We implement a large-scale experiment across all France Travail agencies. We randomize agencies into three treatmen...
Integration agreements between job seekers and public employment services define mutual obligations for labor market integration, including job search requirements, the support provided by the agency, and the conditions under which compliance is monitored and sanctioned. We study how reminding job seekers of different dimensions of these commitments affects their job search behavior, their knowledge of the rules they are subject to, and their labor market outcomes. The study is conducted in the context of the French Contrat d'Engagement (CE), a mandatory integration agreement signed by job seekers and caseworkers upon registration with the French public employment service, France Travail. The CE includes a personalized action plan specifying activities to support labor market integratio...
Differences in workplace outcomes can depend on factors beyond actual task performance. This project studies whether the way workers describe their own performance affects how others evaluate that performance. In an online experiment, participants are shown profiles of workers doing either a Raven-style logical reasoning test or a writing test and are asked to rate the workers on their test performance. Each profile contains either 1) the pieces of work with suggested solutions alongside self-evaluations of the worker describing their task performance on this task; or 2) the pieces of work with suggested solutions alongside some descriptive texts that match in length and positivity of language (control group), randomly shown to participants. I hypothesise that exposure to worker self-ev...