AEA RCT Registry currently lists 12443 studies with locations in 171 countries.
Marriage is among the largest financial decisions an Indian family makes. Dowry transfers at a daughter's wedding can consume more than a year of household income, and the quality of her match shapes her economic security, autonomy, and well-being for decades. How wisely families allocate financial resources across daughters therefore matters enormously. Parents typically arrange their children's marriages in birth order. If a good elder match functions as a positive signal to the marriage market, improving how prospective grooms' families view the household, then parents can capitalise on this spillover by strategically allocating more resources to the elder daughter's match. If no such spillover exists, or if parents misjudge it, the same allocation deprives the younger sister of reso...
Estimates suggest that 250 million children under 5-years of age in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential (Lu, Black, & Richter, 2016). Compared to other regions, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of children at risk, with 38% of the 143 million children younger than 5 stunted and 50% living in extreme poverty (Lu et al., 2016). Early childhood education (ECE) can support child development; estimates suggest that the benefit–cost ratio of increasing ECE access in LMICs is considerable (Engle et al., 2011). Whether ECE targeted to the most vulnerable girls in a community can reduce gender inequalities is not known. Northern Nigeria has some of the world’s highest rates of child marriage and maternal mortality and lowest ra...
I am running an RCT in 80 government and 40 low-cost private schools in Cape Coast Ghana for first grade students. These schools get one or both of two cross-randomized treatments. One treatment organizes scripted parent meetings where parents are 1) told the benefits of doing literacy activities with their child at home (e.g. asking what they learned in school, reading with them, going through school materials etc.), 2) trained on how to understand the report card they get on students literacy scores, and 3) briefly trained how to run a 1-minute reading assessment using provided materials on their child. The other cross-randomized treatment trains school leaders to better coach their teachers in teaching literacy, and also how to interact/engage parents. I am studying the interaction o...
This project aims to use experimental economics and educational science to improve students’ social-emotional development in rural areas by conducting social and emotional learning courses in rural primary schools. The project will use randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the impact of social-emotional learning (SEL) classes on students’ self-awareness, self-esteem, psychological health, interpersonal relationships, behavior problems, and psychological pressures. In the first treatment arm, rural class teachers (without requirement on psychology background) will be given a 2-day training on SEL every semester and then asked to teach SEL classes to rural students once every week in consecutive semesters. In the second treatment arm, rural teachers and students will receive the...
Against the backdrop of increasing use of generative AI, we study the relationship between AI use and well-being using a large scale survey on a representative sample of the French population. First, we conduct descriptive analyses documenting how baseline AI use relates to both subjective and objective loneliness. Second, we run a randomized controlled trial in which participants are assigned either to engage in daily personal conversations with a generative AI for 28 days or to continue their usual behavior. This allows us to uncover the causal effect of daily conversations with generative AI on subjective loneliness and well-being as well as on objective loneliness (real-life interactions).
China's rapid economic development and its central role in driving globalization have significantly expanded its economic ties with the European Union (EU) over the past few decades. However, in recent years, geopolitical tensions have raised concerns within the EU about whether to further strengthen investment ties with China. This project focuses on a crucial aspect of these economic relations: Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) between China and Germany, one of China's largest investment partners within the EU. We propose to conduct a randomized information-provision survey experiment to gauge the German public’s opinions on inward Chinese FDIs in Germany. This study will first investigate whether there are significant misperceptions among the German public regarding the actual figu...
This research employs an artefactual framed-field experiment with students at the investigating University to assess how representation affects individuals’ perceptions of their own academic ability as well as their likelihood to pursue higher education. The experiment also investigates participants’ perceptions of the likelihood that their peers will pursue further education, by gender. Participation is open to current University students at the investigating University across all degree levels and academic fields. Participants will view a video depicting a panel of notable academics. Treatments will vary across the panel depicted with regards to the gender diversity of the academics shown. Participants will be asked a series of questions both before and after the video is shown to...
We study how childcare and eldercare decision-makers respond to email inquiries from parents or children. In a US field experiment with daycare and eldercare centers, we send an email that varies (i) whether the message frames the situation as an exogenous emergency (“our caregiver is moving unexpectedly”), as an endogenous oversight (“we dropped the ball”), or does not specify a reason reason (ii) whether the sender is male or female (by using a male or female sounding name) and (iii) whether the sender is a single parent or not in the case of childcare. We measure if and how centers respond (reply rate and speed), whether they offer an appointment or a spot (and timing), and the tone/helpfulness of replies.
When decision rights and use rights are separated within the household, technologies benefiting low-bargaining-power members are systematically under-adopted, even when socially efficient. This paper studies whether bundling a female-targeted attribute with a male-valued attribute can mitigate this friction. Our collective-household framework shows that pairing a wife-valued improved cookstove with a charger carrying a male net premium moves joint valuation toward the wife's private valuation, narrows gender gaps in willingness to pay, attenuates the sensitivity of adoption to Pareto weights. We will test these predictions using a lab-in-the-field experiment with dual-spouse households in rural Haiti, using a between-subject design eliciting individual and joint valuations for an...
People who believe their intelligence and abilities can be developed over time have growth mindsets, while those that believe they cannot be developed, have fixed mindsets. Students with growth mindsets are predicted to perform better in academics, and to have higher psychological well-being compared to other students. Research suggest that student’s mindsets are malleable, and that level of growth mindset and academic performance can be increased through low-cost and easily scalable interventions. However, there is a lack of studies that focus on how we can support parents to promote the development of growth mindset in their children. I will examine whether parents can learn to foster their children’s growth mindsets through an online intervention. Parents with children in 1.-3. gr...