AEA RCT Registry currently lists 1935 studies with locations in 119 countries.
The proposed study investigates how technology-assisted behavioral interventions can help individuals improve their sleep habits in order to improve educational outcomes. In prior work, we find that incentives for meeting sleep goals increase sleep and also find suggestive evidence that the incentives improve academic performance. Building on these findings, we will test the impact of the following interventions among undergraduates: (1) Technology only and (2) Technology and Incentives. The Technology intervention aims to lower the costs of shifting and sustaining habits, including the costs of tracking sleep and remembering to go to bed on time. Through wearable technology (Fitbits) and a custom smartphone app, we will provide participants with reminders to go to bed and immediate fee...
The Ohio State University and the African Center for Economic Transformation, in collaboration with the University of Ghana, propose to undertake a three-year program of research, outreach, and education designed to promote the adoption of improved production practices among Ghanaian smallholders. OSU/ACET is committed to rigorously testing through randomized control trails and other relevant methods the hypotheses that coupling index insurance with production loans that require any indemnity payment to be first applied to outstanding loans will reduce the impact of widespread agricultural loan defaults on lenders during adverse systemic natural events, thereby allowing lenders to expand access to credit among smallholders and reduce the interest rates they charge on agricultural produ...
We run a randomized control trial with a company to test whether reframing language affects applications and the subsequent hiring process.
Countries with high levels of corruption also have slower government service delivery but it is not known if corruption causes delays, delays causes corruption or if the two are causally related at all. In this project I propose a model for how bureaucrats choose processing times and bribe demands to government service applicants. The models shows how, under certain information settings, the possibility of demanding bribes creates incentives for bureaucrats to create inefficiently long processing times for some applications. I will test the predictions of this model using an experiment in the context of a particular government service in a particular setting, namely changes to land records in Bangladesh. The experiment will first test a management information system in the form of a ...
We attempt to answer two key questions. First, How does gender composition of micro-entrepreneur teams affect business performance? Second, how do prosocial expenditures, gender attitudes and time use are affected by female participation in microenterprises. In answering these questions we exploit two margins of comparison: We compare outcomes for female and mixed gender teams with (i) all-male teams, and (ii) prospective micro-entrepreneur teams (all female and mixed gender, respectively) in control villages. The main outcome variable is business performance, measured by administrative and self-reported data on revenues and recharge frequency. The secondary outcome variables are gender attitudes, aspirations, prosocial expenditures, and time allocation. To answer these questions we ...
This study develops a Randomized Control Trial (RTC) design and uses a Dif-Dif methodology to evaluate the causal effect of Avanza program on business performance. Avanza is a tailor-made advice and training program for SME in Venezuela; it will be implemented by Ideas Foundation, an NGO advising entrepreneurs for the last 13 years. Specifically, the intervention will consist of: 1) Tailored diagnosis based on baseline data and individual interviews to identify main barriers for growth and prepare a one-year work plan; 2) Group seminars on common issues for business owners and managers, according to the goals of their work plan; 3) Six-month advisory services from a senior and a junior consultant based on the diagnosis results . The selection process consisted in a 3-month-wind...
Employee referrals, when existing employees recommend their connections for open vacancies, are a popular hiring practice. There is also a substantial theoretical literature from sociology and economics about referrals. Yet, causal evidence on the effects of referrals on firm performance remains scarce. We run a field experiment in a retail network of 238 shops in an Eastern European EU country, in which we encourage employees in the treatment shops to recommend people they know for vacancies within the network. Employees in the control shops can also recommend but are not encouraged to do so. The main outcome variable of our interest is employee turnover. We choose to target turnover with our experimental treatment because it has blighted our study firm for years, averaging at an up...
I create randomised variation in farm security by matching randomly selected Kenyan smallholding farmers with subsidized Maasai watchmen to protect farms during the main agricultural season. I explore the effect of theft and property crime by testing whether farmers engage in different types of production when their farms are more secure against theft. I further explore how social networks are used to substitute for imperfect protection of property in an environment where state institutions are unable to fully protect farms, and how theft is used to sanction those who neglect social obligations. Finally, I test whether improved security and reduced fear of crime decrease the degree of ethnic ingroup-outgroup parochialism and political preference for authoritarian, `strongman' leaders.
Payments for ecosystems services (PES) and conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are popular and often effective policy approaches to spur behavior change: paying people to undertake behaviors they otherwise would not. Behaviors being “incentivized” usually benefit society, for example reducing deforestation with PES and increasing vaccination and school attendance with CCTs. However, there remains limited evidence on the effectiveness of PES-type interventions in settings of high deforestation and limited institutional capacity, and no studies have focused on fire—an increasingly prominent way to clear land. Our project is based in West Kalimantan, one of the main provinces where Indonesia’s catastrophic 2015—16 fires were concentrated. The goal of the study is to estimate the effects of c...
Anemia is the most common form of malnutrition, affecting approximately 1.6 billion people world-wide. Most commonly caused by iron deficiency, its adverse effects include increased mortality (especially during childbirth), impaired cognitive development among children, chronic fatigue, and reduced lifetime earnings. While iron deficiency is the main cause of anemia worldwide, its etiology is complex and it can also be caused by an insufficient intake of other micronutrients such as Vitamin A, B9, B12 and folate as well as by helminthic infections and malaria. Research in India and elsewhere has shown that under ideal (controlled) conditions, anemia can be reduced by consumption of iron-fortified food and other micro-nutrients. However, much less is known about the effectiveness of...