AEA RCT Registry currently lists 9494 studies with locations in 169 countries.

Most Recently Registered Trials

  • A Sound Decision? The Impact of Audio Descriptions on Economic Rationality
    Last registered on November 09, 2024

    In our previous experiment (Chen and Guan, 2021), we find a significant detrimental effect of auditory descriptions on economic rationality relative to visual descriptions. This disparity may stem from the tendency of individuals to process auditory information sequentially, as opposed to the simultaneous processing of visual information. In this follow-up experiment, we investigate this potential underlying mechanism by prompting subjects to process auditory and visual information sequentially in a tightly controlled setting. By comparing the economic rationality of the two new treatments, we aim to determine the driving mechanism affecting economic rationality when information is presented either visually or auditorily. If the experiment finds no significant differences between the Vi...

  • How does a fraud scandal impact trust in science?
    Last registered on November 08, 2024

    This study addresses how unethical behavior in scientific research impacts trust in science, contributing to a literature on the consequences of corruption and unethical behavior. We propose an informational delivery experiment with high school students in Brazil, where we present them with a summary of a suspected fraud scandal in behavioral science. We divide treated subjects into a "fraud" arm, where they only learn about the fraud accusations, and an "accountability'' arm, where they learn about the investigation and punishment processes involved; this allows us to tell apart the effects of learning about cheating from catching cheaters. We measure the effect on beliefs in science, the use of scientific evidence to update world views, real life attitudes towards science, and spillov...

  • Decision-making Procedures, Rational Choice and Welfare
    Last registered on November 08, 2024

    This paper studies the impact of decision-making procedures on individuals’ rationality and welfare. We theoretically and experimentally study a specific decision-making procedure, sequential elimination in which a decision-maker has to sequentially eliminate options that are not preferred in the decision problem, one by one, until only one option remains. First, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition that sequential elimination results in consistent choice while direct decision-making may not. Then we experiment to examine the treatment effect of sequential elimination on the choice consistency by comparing choice data in three treatment groups: sequential examination, sequential elimination and procedure selection. We also have an incentive-compatible design in which particip...

  • Measuring Over- and Underreaction in Expectations
    Last registered on November 08, 2024

    The study aims to investigate changes in forcasting behavior depending on varying characteristics of the underlying process that participants are forecasting. In a laboratory environment, they are exposed to processes that vary in the number of endogenous variables, persistence of external shocks and whether the dynamics of the forecasting environment is described in technical or non-technical language. The goal is to document systematic patterns in human predictions that depend on the nature of the environment.

  • Understanding the Consequences of Economic Empowerment in Developing Countries
    Last registered on November 08, 2024

    Over recent decades, governments have spent significant resources in efforts to address gender inequality and to empower women. Although the benefits of these policies are well documented, less attention has been given to the unintended consequences that can occur when policies seek to improve outcomes for women. Recent evidence suggests that empowering women can lead to significant backlash in the form of increased discrimination and intimate partner violence. Despite this, there is little empirical research investigating the causes of backlash. Drawing on the existing literature on backlash, we aim to fill this gap by conducting novel experiments to causally test theoretical explanations for backlash.

  • Information, Education and Social Networks
    Last registered on November 07, 2024

    We conducted a randomized experiment in which we provided Wikipedia access to secondary school students at boarding schools in Malawi. Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world, yet internet is widely available on mobile phones. While many young Malawians have occasional or regular access to a mobile phone, access to a smart phone and the internet remain unaffordable. This is likely to change in the near future, in Malawi and across the developed world. The effects of a large increase in access to information for young African students is an important policy question. Investigating the impact of Wikipedia in particular is interesting for both theoretical and policy reasons. First, restricting internet access to Wikipedia allows us to isolate the impact of an informatio...

  • Happy Moments
    Last registered on November 07, 2024

    This experiment aims to test whether reminding customers of “happy moments” (HM) with a product (a positive experience) and varying the timing of the reminder and ask to refer (call to action or CTA) affects the likelihood that a customer refers the product. The customers are randomly assigned to one of 5 main conditions: (1) No communication, (2) Communication 1 day after HM + CTA to refer with reminder of HM; (3) Communication 1 day after HM + CTA to refer with NO reminder of HM; (4) Users have a HM - Communication 1 week after HM + CTA to refer with reminder of HM; and (5) Users have a HM - Communication 1 week after HM + CTA to refer with NO reminder of HM. A credit card company implements the field experiment, and provides us the data thereafter.

  • Reducing racial gaps in referrals and hiring: two experiments with the Colombian Public Employment Services
    Last registered on November 07, 2024

    In this project, we aim to investigate the size of the race gap within the Colombian Public Employment Services (PES) focusing on the role of firms and their relationship with job centers. We mix administrative sources and direct surveys to measure firms' and job counselors' de facto, explicit, and implicit bias within the employment center against afro-descendant job seekers. In addition, we will test how information about firms’ unconscious bias toward afro-descendant job seekers could affect firms hiring behavior. We will also test how information about firms’ beliefs and expectations about afro-descendants could change job counselors’ referral behavior.

  • Reducing the digital divide for marginalized households
    Last registered on November 07, 2024

    Our study aims to address a critical challenge in contemporary society: the integration of low-income families into the rapidly growing digital society. We implement and evaluate a program designed to achieve this goal through three primary channels. Firstly, it ensures families' access to internet connectivity. Secondly, it provides them with digital devices, thus reducing economic barriers to technology adoption. Finally, it fosters the development of digital skills among family members, enabling them to effectively utilize available digital resources. The program is implemented in an Italian city and involves approximately 900 participants, assigned to two treatment groups and a control group. We anticipate that implementing this intervention will promote increased online participat...

  • The Effects of Noncompetes on Workers and Employers
    Last registered on November 06, 2024

    The goal of our study is to causally estimate of the effects of noncompetes themselves on the employment outcomes of workers. To do this, we propose to run a large field experiment where we work alongside an employer to randomly assign noncompetes and their salience, as well as wage offers, to examine how the assignment of noncompetes affects individual willingness to accept a job offer. We can also examine subsequent employment outcomes for the workers, and even directly test the worker’s willingness to violate the noncompete by working with a second employer seeking to hire the workers.