AEA RCT Registry currently lists 12586 studies with locations in 171 countries.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly deployed as decision support in organisations. This study examines how prior exposure to AI advice affects subsequent human judgment in case-based decision tasks. The study is an online experiment with 1:1 individual randomisation. Participants complete three short decision cases involving managerial judgment under uncertainty. The target sample is at least 200 eligible participants with formal leadership responsibility, defined as at least one year of formal responsibility for leading, coordinating, or professionally directing the work of others. In the treatment condition, participants complete all three cases in a sequential two-step format: they first provide an initial answer without AI support, then receive AI advice and are given...
Leveraging administrative data from a province-wide soil-testing program in China,While under-adoption of technology in agriculture is widely discussed, the inappropriate use of technology/input has become a matter of concern. We find strong evidence that farmers in China tend to overuse nitrogen fertilizer and underuse fertilizers in other dimensions, including phosphorus and potassium. Such decision making is affected by the crops' growing stages before the ripening, in which nitrogen provides observable signals on plants while phosphorus and potassium do not. We propose two randomized controlled trials to examine the effects of noticing/improved learning on the appropriate adoption of fertilizers. Our interventions consist in providing soil testing information, fertilizer recommendat...
Regulators are increasingly getting concerned with the power of large online platforms to bias consumer recommendations. In light of these concerns, I study the option of giving consumers control over the recommender algorithm as a potential avenue for regulation. In an online experiment, I let subjects make choices from lists, akin to an e-commerce shopping experience. The list is generated either by an algorithm that is optimizing consumer utility, or by an algorithm that includes both consumer utility and platform profit as part of its objective. My aim is to understand how subjects make choices in this abstract setting, whether recommender algorithms influence their choices, and how subjects choose between recommender algorithms.
This study tests whether providing local government officials with better information and non-financial recognition can improve the allocation of public drinking water wells in rural Bangladesh. Naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater affects tens of millions of people in Bangladesh and poses major health and economic risks. Each year, the government installs a limited number of deep wells to provide arsenic-safe water, but these wells are not always placed where they would benefit the most people. In this randomized controlled trial, 200 Union Chairpersons, who dictate the allocation of governmental wells within their jurisdiction, are cross-randomized into either receiving an access to a web-based planning tool and/or receiving an incentive to prioritize high-arsenic regions wit...
Through a lab-in-the-field experiment, we will study the effect of gender-based social norms on intra-household financial decision-making among couples across three neighbouring societies in India - the Khasi society in Meghalaya, the Karbi society and the Dimasa society in Assam. Outcomes will be measured through behavioural experiment games and a post-experiment survey separately among spouses at a lab-in-the-field setting.
Despite significant gains in financial access across low- and middle-income countries, financial health and resilience remain critically low among informal sector workers, largely due to exposure to uninsured health shocks. In Nigeria, only about 3% of adults aged 15-49 have any form of health insurance, leaving the majority vulnerable to catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditures that undermine business viability and loan repayment. This study provides causal evidence on the impact of bundling health insurance with microfinance loans on the financial outcomes of micro and small informal business owners in Edo State, Nigeria. In partnership with a microfinance institution and the Edo State Health Insurance Commission, eligible clients are offered a voluntary bundled product combining a mic...
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....
This study investigates how tailored information about the sustainability of individuals’ lifestyles influences their investment decisions. The analysis is based on an online survey experiment conducted among retail investors in Germany. Additionally, the study examines whether the effects of this information vary with individuals’ pro-environmental preferences and beliefs.
This project examines the short- and medium-term effects of a literacy program for kindergarten-age children in Denmark, called Læseklar (meaning reading-ready in Danish). Læseklar is a multi-sensory tutoring program that targets the students most at risk of reading difficulties. The program combines components that have shown promising results in the international literature: one-to-one and small-group tutoring, a focus on phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, and multi-sensory learning methods. We evaluate the effectiveness of the program with a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT). Approximately 80 schools will participate in the experiment, half will receive the treatment and the other half is the control group. The short-term primary outcome measure is a standardized test ...
We investigate the impact of a group loan product and a smartphone application for savings groups members in Malawi and Uganda. Linking savings groups with financial service providers could alleviate financial barriers for many savings groups participants who tend to be relatively poor, rural, and with limited access to capital. Meanwhile, digital ledgers, managed via a smartphone application, could solve many of the operational challenges faced by savings groups in recording transactions in a physical group ledger or individual passbooks, and could help improve the availability of financial information to formal credit providers. The partners, including IPA, are working together to determine if economic and social wellbeing increases as a result of these two interventions.