AEA RCT Registry currently lists 11833 studies with locations in 170 countries.
This study investigates the role of business stealing concerns and freeriding in retailers' decision to adopt new products. Motivated by a model of strategic experimentation, we investigate whether small retail firms in low and middle-income (LMIC) countries under-adopt new products because of strategic considerations and positive externalities. We implement a randomized controlled trial in Burundi to test these hypotheses in which we assign markets to have an exclusive retail partner of a new good or not and examine whether this increases product adoption. We combine this with pricing experiments to estimate demand and evaluate the tradeoffs between greater technology adoption and monopoly rents.
Job loss is one of the most costly economic risks workers are exposed to throughout their lifetimes, and firms vary widely in their separation rates. Workers' ability to perceive differences in employment risk across jobs affects sorting of workers to firms, compensating differentials for risk, and firm layoff decisions. Do workers accurately perceive the relative historical employment risk of different jobs? Does changing beliefs about historical firm risk affect beliefs about future personal risk and job search behavior? What are the implications of potential misperceptions for wages and separation rates? In this project, we survey jobseekers in Lower Austria to (1) compare beliefs about historical layoff rates to the true rates and (2) use an information provision experiment to study...
We conduct survey experiments to investigate the effect of 2017 legislation to prohibit pregnancy-based harassment and discrimination in workplace on women’s support for various redistributive and welfare policies in Japan.
We study how the presence of AI affects the widely documented gender gap in selection into competition. Specifically, we conduct a lab experiment in which we randomize whether people have access to AI tools in solving tasks. We test how this affects the decision to select into competitive environments vs an individual piece rate and how this effect varies by gender. We also explore different mechanisms that may explain the effect on the gender gap in competition.
This project proposes a rigorous experimental evaluation of the financial education program developed by the Bank of Italy for students enrolled in Primary Teacher Education. The initiative, implemented since 2021 and now adopted by more than twenty universities, aims to strengthen future teachers’ foundational economic and financial knowledge and support the integration of these concepts into primary school teaching. The study will assess the program’s effectiveness in improving financial knowledge, reducing cultural and cognitive barriers toward financial topics, and enhancing participants’ perceived self efficacy and willingness to teach these themes in their future classrooms, an especially relevant goal given the predominantly female, humanities oriented composition of the target p...
This study examines how the format in which benefit information is presented affects low-income workers' understanding of multi-program benefit cliffs and their labor-supply decisions. Benefit cliffs occur when modest earnings increases trigger disproportionate losses in public assistance — such as SNAP, Medicaid, CCDF, and TANF — leaving households worse off despite higher wages. Using a 2×2 between-subject experiment recruited through Prolific, we randomly assign participants to one of two information formats (an interactive dashboard or an AI assistant) and independently vary whether they receive information about the temporary nature of benefit losses (recovery information). Participants first complete a baseline estimate of how a hypothetical job offer would affect their total hous...
This study evaluates how voluntary AI-assisted practice tools affect student outcomes in higher education. We run a field experiment in a mandatory economics course at a large research university. All enrolled students (target sample of approx. 550) are offered access to a course-specific online learning platform with AI-assisted self-study tools. Impact evaluation relies on variation in AI feature availability across parts of the course and individual-level randomization into alternative default AI tool configurations. Primary outcomes are exam performance as well as engagement with AI-tools and traditional course materials.
This project’s primary goal is to pilot a digital outreach program intended to improve money management and retirement preparedness skills among low to moderate income workers.
This study tests whether acute economic insecurity amplifies discrimination toward transgender women in prosocial decisions. Non-LGBTQ+ adults are recruited online (Prolific) and they are assigned to economic (in)security based on the payday calendar they report. If the current date is 2 to 4 days before their payday they are assigned to insecurity treatment and they do a writing task to prime income insecurity, if its 0 to 3 days after they receive their wage they are assigned to do security treatment and do a security writing task. and After the writing task, participants report current affect (PANAS) and then play a give-or-take dictator game in which the outcome is the net transfer to the recipient (positive values indicate giving; negative values indicate taking). Each dictator m...
Individuals invest in human capital under uncertainty about their future labor market outcomes. Vocational training prepares students for a specific career path, but the distribution of potential occupations is generally wide, and many may lack information about dispersion of these outcomes and their own proficiency in transferable skills—leading to underinvestment in portable human capital. We test whether providing concise, data-driven information can correct these misperceptions and shift investment toward transferable skills. In partnership with SENAI-SP, Brazil's largest vocational training provider, we conduct a 2×2 factorial experiment among approximately 34,000 students across roughly 100 schools, 1,200 classrooms, and 47 vocational tracks in São Paulo. Classrooms are randomized...