AEA RCT Registry currently lists 12869 studies with locations in 172 countries.
This study evaluates whether access to a Grounded Large Language Model (LLM) Study Platform, an AI-powered study tool available to ASU students, helps undergraduate students build more effective study habits and improve academic performance, and whether the tool is more effective when paired with personalized guidance about evidence-based study practices. The study is a three-arm randomized controlled trial among undergraduate students enrolled in targeted intermediate economics and business courses at Arizona State University. Consenting students complete a baseline survey after the first course exam and are randomly assigned to: (1) a Control group receiving the standard course experience and neutral study-related contact; (2) a Grounded Large Language Model (LLM) Study Platform-only ...
The study uses an between-subjects randomized online survey experiment. After completing a pre-test questionnaire on demographics and moral convictions, participants are randomly assigned to a treatment or control group and read a short informational text about hate crime. The treatment group reads an additional paragraph on anti-hate-crime legislation. Participants then complete an Implicit Association Test (IAT) and a questionnaire measuring attitudes related to hate crime. The main analysis examines whether exposure to information on anti-hate-crime legislation affects these attitudes and whether treatment effects are moderated by ex-ante measured moral convictions.
Generative AI can now be used to help citizens move from a mere social concern to a concrete, structured policy proposal. This creates a question for participatory politics: what changes when part of the work of generating a proposal can be supported by AI? AI may matter on the formulation side, by shaping the clarity, structure, feasibility, and appeal of the proposals citizens formulate. It may also matter on the reception side, by shaping how other citizens react to those proposals, especially when they know that AI was involved in producing them. We study these questions in the context of Le Primarie delle Idee, an Italian participatory platform launched in April 2026. The platform allows registered users to develop policy proposals either with the support of a generative AI a...
This thesis examines whether an extraordinary municipal debt communication increases tax compliance and whether adding information about the use of public resources produces an additional effect. We implement a randomized controlled field experiment involving more than 16.000 municipal accounts. Accounts are assigned with equal probability, within 48 strata, to four arms: no debt statement; a standard debt statement without an additional municipal message; a statement containing a public-safety message; or a statement containing a public-space message. Stratification is based on valid-email availability, property locality, and four categories of overdue installments. Accounts in the three active treatment arms with a valid email address receive the same statement through both physical ...
Like other weather-related disasters, the occurrence of severe wildfires is growing throughout North America. This escalating risk can be mitigated through efforts by property owners to manage vegetation and other flammable material near homes. Despite the cost-effectiveness of these investments, take-up is low. There are several economic and psychological theories for why beneficial self-protective investments in wildfire readiness could have low take-up despite their likely cost-effectiveness: these could include lack of information, complexity and psychological frictions, credit/cash constraints, and spatial externalities across neighboring properties. We propose to conduct a pilot study to identify interventions to address these barriers. We will randomize households in areas with h...
Like other weather-related disasters, the occurrence of severe wildfires is growing throughout North America. This escalating risk can be mitigated through efforts by property owners to manage vegetation and other flammable material near homes. Despite the cost-effectiveness of these investments, take-up is low. There are several economic and psychological theories for why beneficial self-protective investments in wildfire readiness could have low take-up despite their likely cost-effectiveness: these could include lack of information, complexity and psychological frictions, credit/cash constraints, and spatial externalities across neighboring properties. We propose to conduct a study to identify interventions to address these barriers. We will randomize households in areas with high w...
Appearance is potentially important in academic settings: in-person/virtual job-talks for academic hiring are common across many fields; personal websites and videos summarizing research articles are becoming standard; speeches and seminars are a routine part of publicizing papers. Are there definitive norms of appearance in academia, or are they more like unspoken rules and are there differences across disciplines? How does the public’s understanding of norms compare against the views of academics? We plan to answer these questions by surveying three groups of respondents—faculty, university students, and lay adults—about their perception of academic job candidates they know to be hypothetical. In particular, we will ask them to rate pictured headshots on perceived competence, professi...
Public health systems ration surgical capacity through waiting times, which can be extremely long for elective surgery in low- and middle-income countries. While waiting, patients make consequential decisions about their health, finances and work, often with limited information. In partnership with a public hospital in Chile, we combine administrative data, a survey and an RCT to study how rationing by waiting shapes patient behavior and which policies can improve its efficiency and equity.
In this study, we investigate the interaction of firms’ price- and wage-setting behavior and their inflation expectations. This wave is conducted to increase the general validity of our previous RCT and to control for additional aspects (e.g., cost expectations). In particular, we study how inflation expectations are passed through into prices and wages. While there is a broad theoretical consensus about the relevance of firms’ price-setting for inflation and economic activity, we know relatively little about how, and to what extent, firms build their inflation expectations into their prices and wages. We analyze these questions using a new firm-level RCT survey conducted in Switzerland. Switzerland provides an ideal setting, as it has a history of low and stable inflation and a flexibl...
This study investigates the effects of platform-based gig work on the workers who perform this type of job. It focuses on two complementary dimensions. First, it studies the effects of gaining access to this type of work. Second, it studies how exposure to the most affluent neighborhoods while performing this work shapes workers’ worldviews, aspirations, political preferences, and attitudes toward the rich. The study will be conducted in São Paulo, Brazil.