AEA RCT Registry currently lists 1403 studies with locations in 110 countries.
Recent experimental studies show that behavior in distributional situations can be traced back to a variety of fairness ideals and that the majority of people can be characterized as meritocrats distinguishing between personal factors (effort and talent) and impersonal factors (luck) when it comes to the attribution of responsibility for an outcome. However, in many situations the extend to which an achievement is determined by an individual's performance or luck is not directly observable and often remains unknown. In this project, we therefore aim to answer the following research question: What happens to people's willingness to redistribute earnings if there exists uncertainty about the role of luck and merit in the production of these earnings?
Using text messages to motivate, inform, and remind individuals at key moments has shown to be a promising research area. We seek to answer whether the delivery mechanism of text messages can be effectively used to leverage students' social support network. A substantial literature shows that adolescents who with supportive parents, peers and teachers do better in school than those who cannot identify such sources of support. This study harnesses these relationships to improve student attainment. The process is as follows; students nominate one or two ‘study supporters’ via a short online survey - people whom they communicate with often and who support them. Students are subsequently individually randomised to one of the following arms: (1) control (2) study supporter receives messages,...
Large-scale assessments have allowed policy-makers, researchers, and the general public to compare learning outcomes across (national and sub-national) school systems and over time. This study examines whether they can achieve another equally-important goal: to provide useful information to improve school management and/or classroom instruction. We present experimental evidence on the impact of the use of large-scale assessments for diagnostic feedback and capacity-building. We randomly assigned 105 public primary schools in the province of La Rioja, Argentina to: (a) a diagnostic feedback group in which we administered standardized tests in math and Spanish at baseline and two follow-ups and made their results available to the schools through user-friendly reports; (b) a capacity-build...
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the largest means-tested cash transfer program in the United States, and accounts for a significant share of income for those who receive it. As opposed to most other federal and state transfer programs, the credit is disbursed only once a year, resulting in uneven cash flow for recipients that may undermine their economic security. Interestingly however, past programs that have offered a distributed payment schedule have suffered from low take-up. The purpose of this research is to explore the determinants of demand for, and the effects of, a novel periodic EITC payment program. In cooperation with the Center for Economic Progress, researchers will first conduct pilot activities to learn more about demand for periodic payment and how best to imple...
We perform a field experiment in order to study how feedback about one’s performance as compared to its peers can shape the educational outcomes of university students. We consider two types of feedback, feedback regarding an input (study effort) and an output (intermediate grades). We distinguish between new and incumbent students in order to study heterogeneous treatment effects.
This evaluation is of the STRYDE 2.0 program implemented by TechnoServe in Mbeya, Tanzania, which seeks to promote youth self-employment and microbusinesses through a 12 month course. Youth (aged 18-30) who participate receive 3 months of in classroom training followed by 9 months of aftercare activities. The goal of this intervention is to train rural youth on personal efficacy and career skills and later link the trained youth with potential employers or help them develop business plans for self-employment. STRYDE 2.0 is delivered through two different arms: direct and indirect. Participants in the direct arm receive training directly from STRYDE 2.0 employees. In the indirect arm participants receive training on the same STRYDE 2.0 modules, but their instruction is received through ...
Most of the poor receive their income in cash and they seem to readily spend it instead of saving some of it. Offering commitment devices to overcome present bias or sending reminders to tackle inattention and forgetfulness only seem to yield modest improvements. In particular, usage levels of formal savings account usually remain low. What if the act itself, depositing the cash into the account or handing it over to the loan officer is associated with non-monetary costs that prevents individuals from saving? Based on a literature that shows reduced spending levels when cash is the means of transaction, I hypothesize that a "cash-in-hand" effect also exists for savings, i.e. individuals become attached to their cash and are reluctant to 'give it away' to save it. I test this hypothesis ...
We propose to combine the tools of psychology and economics to study the broader question of how gun access affects decisions with real financial consequences for participants in a controlled laboratory setting. We first replicate an experiment from psychology in which realistic gun access is randomized and a perception task is performed. We then extend this experiment by asking subjects to perform a standard lottery choice task from the experimental economics literature and test for an impact of gun access on financial risk-taking.
The Italian Social Security Institute (INPS) has estimated that only one fourth of the one million children with disabilities living in Italy are receiving cash transfers specifically designed for them. As in other countries, in the absence of specific studies on this subject, one can speculate that the causes of the low take up rate are mainly related to the direct and indirect costs to families to obtain the transfer, which include a long, burdensome, path of medical visits to certify the disability. To cut these costs and try to increase the take up rate, INPS has recently signed a protocol with three of the largest pediatric hospitals in the country, which are able to supply care for a large range of disabilities. The goal of the agreement is to reduce the burden to households by al...
In 2016, the World Bank and the Ministry of Agriculture of Punjab, Pakistan worked together to provide to all field workers smart phones equipped with a monitoring system called Agri-Smart. This project, joint with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of Punjab, Pakistan, proposes to introduce and evaluate performance-based incentives using the Agri-Smart system, to reward greater outreach efforts by field staff. The goal is to improve agricultural productivity which is seen as critical for both poverty reduction and growth. We will pilot different incentive schemes to answer the primary research question is “How can different bonus schemes for agriculture extension workers improve service outreach and quality to meet the needs of farmers?” Answering this question will ...