AEA RCT Registry currently lists 12586 studies with locations in 171 countries.
This project studies how individuals perceive debt-financed government spending and the factors shaping their support for it. We address three main questions: (i) What considerations and concerns do people raise when thinking about debt-financed spending? (ii) How do these concerns affect policy preferences? (iii) Are attitudes perspective-dependent, i.e. shaped by salient roles such as taxpayer or beneficiary of public goods? To answer these questions, we conduct two large-scale online surveys with representative samples from Germany. In the first survey (N=4,000), we dedicate 1,000 respondents to elicit first-order concerns through open-ended questions about arguments for or against debt-financed government spending, followed by questions on policy preferences and voting relevance....
This study investigates how tailored information about the sustainability of individuals’ lifestyles influences their investment decisions. The analysis is based on an online survey experiment conducted among retail investors in Germany. Additionally, the study examines whether the effects of this information vary with individuals’ pro-environmental preferences and beliefs.
This project examines the short- and medium-term effects of a literacy program for kindergarten-age children in Denmark, called Læseklar (meaning reading-ready in Danish). Læseklar is a multi-sensory tutoring program that targets the students most at risk of reading difficulties. The program combines components that have shown promising results in the international literature: one-to-one and small-group tutoring, a focus on phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, and multi-sensory learning methods. We evaluate the effectiveness of the program with a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT). Approximately 80 schools will participate in the experiment, half will receive the treatment and the other half is the control group. The short-term primary outcome measure is a standardized test ...
We investigate the impact of a group loan product and a smartphone application for savings groups members in Malawi and Uganda. Linking savings groups with financial service providers could alleviate financial barriers for many savings groups participants who tend to be relatively poor, rural, and with limited access to capital. Meanwhile, digital ledgers, managed via a smartphone application, could solve many of the operational challenges faced by savings groups in recording transactions in a physical group ledger or individual passbooks, and could help improve the availability of financial information to formal credit providers. The partners, including IPA, are working together to determine if economic and social wellbeing increases as a result of these two interventions.
Despite significant gains in financial access across low- and middle-income countries, financial health and resilience remain critically low among informal sector workers, largely due to exposure to uninsured health shocks. In Nigeria, only about 3% of adults aged 15-49 have any form of health insurance, leaving the majority vulnerable to catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditures that undermine business viability and loan repayment. This study provides causal evidence on the impact of bundling health insurance with microfinance loans on the financial outcomes of micro and small informal business owners in Edo State, Nigeria. In partnership with a microfinance institution and the Edo State Health Insurance Commission, eligible clients are offered a voluntary bundled product combining a mic...
Substantial gender disparities in depression and suicide rates are observed worldwide. While women are more frequently diagnosed with depression, men have a substantially higher rate of completed suicides. This project aims to investigate whether gender differences in the recognition of mental health issues and the likelihood of seeking help contribute to these patterns. The project consists of (1) an analysis of mental health diagnoses and suicide data using administrative records from Norway, and (2) an online experiment with a representative U.S. sample, aiming to identify whether mental health symptom recognition and willingness to seek help differ by gender.
The abstract is included in the uploaded pre-analysis plan document. It is not included here to prevent participants from obtaining information regarding the experiment features and treatments.
In this pre-registered online experiment I investigate how a design choice made by the vendor of an AI assistant shapes financial judgment when the underlying information is held fixed. Participants forecast a firm's future earnings and allocate a hypothetical investment after reading an earnings conference-call transcript. Using a correspondence design, I hold all financial content constant and vary only the demographic characteristics signaled by the executives' names. I cross this with random assignment to AI assistance whose content reflects different vendor design choices, including a no-assistance control. The design aims to identify whether the identity signaled by a firm's executives moves earnings forecasts and investment when fundamentals are held constant, and whether the ven...
Childhood lead exposure remains a major public health problem in low- and middle-income countries, where around half of children have elevated blood lead levels that can cause lifelong harm to their health and development. A key challenge in addressing this problem is the limited evidence on which lead sources contribute most to child exposure, and therefore which interventions are likely to be effective. This study addresses this gap by experimentally evaluating the effects of removing two commonly contaminated household products — cookware and traditional eyeliner — on children's blood lead levels. We randomly assign 300 households in Ghana's Northern Region, a known lead exposure hotspot, to receive lead-free replacements for contaminated cookware, contaminated eyeliner, both product...
This project evaluates the scale-up of Semillas de Apego, a community-based psychosocial program designed to restore caregiver mental health and protect early childhood development in conflict-affected and displaced communities. The program targets caregivers of children aged 0–5, a group disproportionately exposed to trauma and adversity. While nurturing care is critical for protecting children’s development, traumatic stress impairs caregivers’ mental health and their capacity to emotionally connect with their children. Semillas de Apego addresses this by promoting caregiver mental health as both an outcome and a pathway for protecting early childhood development in humanitarian contexts. Developed by Universidad de los Andes and the Child Trauma Research Program at UCSF, the progr...