AEA RCT Registry currently lists 4618 studies with locations in 159 countries.
This experiment will use exploration sampling to test the effects of weekly text messaging to parents' phones as a means to increase student use of a phone quiz platform and ultimately learning outcomes. The study will be implemented by a partner organization that operates private schools in Lagos, Nigeria, among approximately 4705 students in Primaries 1-6. The study will proceed in two stages. In the first stage, we will use adaptive treatment assignment with exploration sampling and stratification to choose one out of four "types" of text messages. Designed by the partner, the four message "types" include motivational framing, testimonial framing, and varying numbers of practice quizzes tailored to what the student recently covered in class. The text message type chosen in the fi...
The purpose of this experiment is to test the implementation of an adaptive experimental procedure designed by the authors in a real-world context. The goal of many experiments is to inform the choice between different policies. However, standard experimental designs are geared toward point estimation and hypothesis testing. We consider the problem of treatment assignment in an experiment with several cross-sectional waves where the goal is to choose among a set of possible policies (treatments) for large-scale implementation. We show that optimal experimental designs learn from earlier waves by assigning more experimental units to the better-performing treatments in later waves. We propose a computationally tractable approximation of the optimal design, based on a modification of Tho...
The study is a randomized controlled trial to test the impact of a low-cost intervention to overcome psychological constraints to female labor force participation (FLFP). While socioeconomic background, information on available jobs and job skills are important determinants of entry into the labor market (Humphrey et al 2009; Jenson, 2012); studies have shown only modest impacts of job search assistance and skills training on employment and wages (see McKenzie 2017 for a review). Further, skills training programs often suffer from low enrollment (Cheema et al., 2012, 2015) and high cost (Adhoho et al., 2014); suggesting it is time to think of new interventions that can complement traditional skills training programs to promote employment. We investigate the extent to which psychological...
This study uses a survey-based experiment to test whether the provision of descriptive social norm information, namely, the share of other study participants who intend to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, influences the likelihood a student declares their own intention to get vaccinated.
In response to COVID-19, a third of social protection measures have taken the form of cash transfers reaching more than 1.1 billion people --- a 240% increase in coverage from pre-COVID levels. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, direct cash transfers are an effective tool to protect vulnerable households. We conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a targeted cash transfer program implemented in rural Togo between November 2020 and May 2021. In collaboration with GiveDirectly, the government of Togo secured sufficient funding to provide benefits to roughly 57,000 of the approximately 580,000 citizens living in the poorest 100 cantons. Using mobile phone and satellite data, we identified the poorest cantons and poorest people living in them. We randomized the beneficiarie...
This study will assess the effect of the Graduation model in Malawi on gender empowerment and household welfare outcomes in married couples. The Graduation Model is a 'big push' intervention designed to move people out of poverty by addressing the many challenges of extreme poverty by simultaneously boosting livelihoods and income and providing access to financial services. The Graduation program will be run over an 18 month period, with the first cohort receiving the program from November 2018 to June 2020, and the second one between October 2019 – June 2021. The research will estimate the impact of three distinct version of the graduation intervention, 1) the graduation program targeted at the female spouse, 2) the graduation program targeted at the male spouse and 3) the graduation...
With raw cashew nuts exports accounting for 25% of the GDP and over 90% of Guinea-Bissau’s exports, cashew nuts production represents over 40% of annual income for over half of the country’s population. Recent studies have shown that the farm gate price, at which producers sell their raw cashew nuts, is a critical variable with a huge impact on the country’s GDP growth. Disperse ownership of small and medium cashew plantations across the population makes the impact of farm gate prices on poverty levels even larger. The increased variability of international raw cashew nuts prices in recent years has introduced an important source of inefficiency in this market: accurate information about short-term fluctuations in prices rarely reaches producers. This implies that producers frequently e...
Old age pensions are a common feature of welfare policy worldwide. However, little is known about the effect of these pensions on the recipients and their families. In this study, we will partner with the government of Tamil Nadu, India to study the effects of old age pensions. We will assign households with a member who is likely to be eligible for the pension but not currently receiving it to either a treatment or control condition. Those assigned to treatment will receive assistance in applying for the pension. We will track outcomes of the elderly and their family members for several years following the intervention.
In this work, we are partnering with Contra Costa Health Services (CCHS), the department of health in Contra Costa County, CA, to measure COVID-19 vaccinations and other COVID-19 related preventive health behaviors in the county’s Medicaid managed care population. Our work will test ways to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake. We hypothesize that small financial incentives and other low-cost behavioral nudges can be used to increase vaccine uptake and reduce disparities in uptake among diverse racial/ethnic minority populations.
When evaluating employees' job performance, subjective appraisals are frequently used. A large variety of studies has stressed that these subjective performance ratings tend to be biased: they are often too lenient and too similar between employees, meaning that raters do not differentiate between high and low performers. This study investigates which influence the appraisal format has on the performance rating by evaluating written and spoken appraisals.