AEA RCT Registry currently lists 7955 studies with locations in 167 countries.
Health care decisions are sometimes a matter of life and death, but also their financial consequences can be disastrous for many households around the world. While one can imagine how the fear of making an expensive mistake may deter households from making otherwise sensible health care choices, there is almost no scientific evidence on the importance and joint role of medical and financial uncertainty. In this project, we first provide theoretical insights based on simulation exercises and develop a novel measurement instrument for medical and cost uncertainty using hypothetical health scenarios (vignettes). Initial analyses from data collected using this instrument with low-income households in Pakistan reveal that on top of many biases, both medical as well as cost uncertainty in hea...
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination campaigns try to further increase vaccination rates. In written reminders, we include behavioral interventions and test their influence on vaccination rates. The study comprises three distinct projects. Project 1 examines the effect of written reminders on vaccination decisions by comparing vaccination rates in our sample to an untreated comparison group. Project 2 tests the effect of social norm information included in the written reminder on the vaccination decision. Project 3 looks at the influence of a mobile vaccination team, offering on site vaccination where no appointment is needed.
Farmer experimentation with new technologies is constant and fundamental to adoption, innovation, and climate adaptation. Even so, this experimentation often takes place in semi-private ways that limit the positive externalities of their effort and slows learning by others. We implement a village-level randomized controlled trial to evaluate three strategies to promote farmer experimentation and learning. We vary the proportion of farmers in a village to whom we offer maize seed trial packs, splitting the low concentration treatment arm to an incentive and non-incentive group. In 52 villages, 10% of villagers receiving trial packs of 0.5 kgs of maize. In 52 villages, 10% of the farmers receive packs plus incentives to compensate them for the knowledge that they generate. In a third arm ...
How do people update their beliefs on contentious political issues when they receive new information? Do they do so in a rational manner or do they refuse to update their beliefs? To investigate this, we perform a survey experiment through survey panel company Prolific. We study the extent to which people claim their beliefs on highly salient political issues would change depending on pertinent empirical information (provided as hypotheticals). We then compare these responses to how beliefs actually change when people are given empirical information, which yields insight about the prevalence of motivated reasoning. We apply this approach to a range of issues -- police shootings of minorities, climate change, affirmative action, income taxation of the top 1%, economic mobility, transge...
Parental involvement may hinder the meritocracy of otherwise merit based competitions among children. However, believing that other parents will help their children, interference may occur to ensure that one's child is not left at a disadvantage. This study aims to investigate to what degree parents want to provide their child an advantage in an originally meritocratic competition, and how their choice of whether or not to interfere in the competition (i.e. provide help) is affected by the possibility that other parents may help their children. If you as a parent were given the possibility to give your child an advantage, would you do it? Would you compromise the meritocracy of a competition to benefit your child? To study this potential mechanism for why parents interfere in their c...
We conducted a large-scale randomized controlled trial among a population of Hungarian self-employed entrepreneurs who are subject to an elective simplified tax regime where they can choose between lower monthly tax payments with lower future social security benefits, and higher payments with higher future benefits. In the trial they received letters describing the differences between these regimes and a short explanation on expected differences in future pensions. Based on the literature and previous BI experiences, we expect that this intervention will increase the probability of choosing for the higher contribution option. We expect that the local average treatment effect will be positive among those who open the letter. The effect of different letter types will be also measured, and...
Single-use plastics are a ubiquitous and continuous threat to the environment—especially single-use plastic bags from everyday shopping, which people throw away after use. About 5 trillion plastic bags are used yearly worldwide, and this consumption is primarily attributed to consumer behavior. Unlike plastic food packaging, consumers can choose whether or not to use plastic bags to carry their goods from the shop to home. Through two pilot field experiments, we will test the efficacy of behavioral nudges to reduce plastic bag use among retail consumers in a developing country context. We hypothesize that consumer behavior changes towards reduced plastic bag consumption through changes in the shopping environment and giving a mild reminder to the consumers. The first pilot experimen...
We present causal evidence regarding the impact of a student's ethnicity and gender on teacher evaluations in middle school. In this study, we engage teachers to assess written assignments for full classes in two subjects: mathematics and Norwegian language. By randomly assigning names that signal both gender and ethnicity to the assignments within teachers, we investigate whether students with equal ability but different names receive equal grades, on average. While our primary focus is on the average effects of student gender and ethnicity, we also conduct an extensive analysis of heterogeneity, considering factors such as ability, student gender, teacher experience, and the gender of the teacher. This document outlines our analysis plan, including our primary specifications of interest.
Managers at a garment factory in Vietnam complain about low rates of productivity and high rates of turnover among their workers. Based on qualitative research, we found that workers invest little in acquiring new skills despite there being clear monetary payoffs. We hypothesize that this has two reasons: First, workers are not aware about the returns to investing in new skills. Second, they see existing skilled and productive workers as being very different from themselves and don’t perceive high skills to be possible and desirable for them. We plan to experimentally test whether relaxing either constraint separately or relaxing them jointly affects workers’ investment in their skills, their effort, their productivity, as well as their retention and absenteeism rates.
Despite the centrality of training in proposals to reform policing, credible causal evidence on how police training impacts police behavior in the field is limited. We will evaluate a 40 hour classroom training program developed by the Anaheim Police Department (APD), which is intended to promote officer wellness and procedurally-just decision making. Officer volunteers were randomly assigned to a treated or waitlisted-control condition, with the treated group being assigned to a week long course lead by an experienced local police trainer. We evaluate this training through surveys of treated and control officers, surveys of adult Anaheim residents, as well as administrative data on police actions in the field.