AEA RCT Registry currently lists 11722 studies with locations in 170 countries.
Individuals investing their savings need to decide how risky a portfolio they want to hold. Riskier portfolios offer higher expected returns but are also more volatile, a trade-off that is important to keep in mind when planning to withdraw funds at a specific point in time. These considerations become especially relevant in old age, when accumulated savings need to be transformed into a steady stream of income. Information on financial products, such as Key Information Documents (KIDs), often communicate risks using verbal categories (e.g. “very conservative” or “very risky”) for different ranges of risk. Effective communication requires a shared understanding of these labels between investors and financial institutions. In this explorative study we test which ranges of risk individual...
Vaccination rates are declining globally, threatening public health and herd immunity. Effective communication is critical to counter misinformation and increase vaccine uptake, but little is known about whether messenger identity or communication format most influences beliefs and intentions. This study examines how people respond to trusted scientific sources versus popular non-expert voices, and whether immersive or conventional communication channels affect persuasion and information diffusion. By integrating insights from behavioral economics, communication, and social networks, the project aims to identify evidence-based strategies for improving public health messaging and understanding how messages spread through social connections. Findings will have implications for policymaker...
A wide range of experimental social science literature explores how attribution of public service delivery matters for politics (e.g. Martin and Raffler, 2021; Raffler, 2022; Grossman and Slough, 2022). A second, mostly observational, literature explains how groups engaged in armed conflict with the state ("rebels") govern areas during and after conflict (e.g. Loyle et al., 2021). We use a randomized control trial (RCT) of a mental health and psycho-social skills program provided by ethnic health organisations (EHOs) in areas outside of full Myanmar government control and ask: What is the impact of public service provision on preferences about governance in conflict-affected areas? Under what conditions does external support for civilian activities by non-state organisations shape legit...
Education contributes to economic growth, and it increases individuals’ incomes and overall quality of life. Most developing countries have succeeded in enrolling almost all children in primary school. Yet in these countries student learning in primary school is often far below the levels envisioned for their grade. This challenge is also the case in Jordan; student performance in Jordan’s primary schools remains well below international benchmarks. One strategy to address low student performance in developing countries is the use of “Educational Technology,” often referred to as “EdTech,” which can take many forms. One form that has attracted interest is the use of AI chatbots, which can personalize learning to teach at the right level (TaRL). We will implement a randomized controlled ...
This study evaluates the cost-effectiveness of a three-week (15-day) summer camp program in the Dominican Republic to reduce grade repetition and improve academic performance for students struggling with foundational literacy and numeracy. The program, developed and implemented by the Dominican Ministry of Education (MINERD), targets low-achieving and overage students in grades 3-5 who are at high risk of being held back. We will examine the impact of invitations to the program on attendance at the camp, test scores, grade retention, and dropout using randomized invitations to the program. We have already examined the impacts on attendance. Randomized invitations are associated with 3.9 more days of summer camp attendance and a 26 percentage point increase in the fraction of students w...
In addition to its obvious direct effects on human welfare, conflict can cause a host of indirect effects— by fueling depression, PTSD, drug abuse, and domestic violence, and by disrupting communities’ social cohesion. This project investigates how to improve mental health, resilience, and social cohesion in conflict-affected communities in rural Myanmar. One promising yet understudied approach is non- specialist, community-based mental health care delivery. We are conducting a randomized evaluation of one such community-based psychosocial program in war-torn villages in Kayin, Myanmar. The flagship Mental Health & Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) program of our implementation partner, Community Partners International, involves a simplified group-based curriculum focused on depression, post...
In this experiment, we design and deploy an informational intervention to applicants to high schools, providing applicant families a set of geographically nearby, high-performing programs.
We investigate the attention and influence that scientific evidence receives in online settings. In an online experiment, participants in the role of "senders" view sets of articles based on research studies, and decide which articles to share and what content to provide alongside the article. We vary features of the articles and the communication process to shed light on the drivers of online attention to different types of evidence. In a separate experiment, participants in the role of "receivers" will choose which articles to click on to read more about.
The role of quality certification in driving firm growth in low-income countries remains insufficiently understood. Certification may enable firms to integrate into more demanding and higher-value supply chains, both domestically and globally, by meeting stricter quality, safety, and regulatory standards. These shifts have the potential to foster standardization and upgrading of both products and production processes, with resulting productivity gains that propagate through supplier and buyer networks. We investigate these mechanisms in partnership with the Rwanda Standards Board (RSB) through a randomized controlled trial of “Zamukana Ubuziranenge,” a technical assistance program that supports small and medium-sized enterprises in obtaining product and system certifications. We use adm...
This study examines how regulatory interventions affect cooperation in repeated social dilemmas, with a particular focus on spillover effects that persist after external enforcement is removed. We employ a laboratory experiment in which 252 participants play a two-person finitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemma (T=90, R=60, P=55, S=10) over 24 rounds divided into two phases.In Phase 1 (Rounds 1–12), participants are randomly and fixedly matched and subject to one of five between-subjects treatments that vary the scope and information structure of a forced-compliance regulation mechanism. Unlike standard punishment mechanisms, the regulation imposes no financial penalties; instead, defection choices are automatically corrected to cooperation, allowing us to isolate the behavioral effects of ...