AEA RCT Registry currently lists 865 studies with locations in 102 countries.
We address the role of "psychological frictions" in the incomplete take-up of earned income tax credit (EITC) benefits with an IRS field experiment. We specifically assess the influence of program confusion, informational complexity, and stigma by evaluating response to experimental mailings distributed to 35,050 tax filers who failed to claim $26 million despite an initial notice. While the mere receipt of the mailing, simplification, and the heightened salience of benefits led to substantial additional claiming, attempts to reduce perceived costs of stigma, application, and audits did not. The study, and accompanying surveys, suggests that low program awareness/understanding and informational complexity contribute to the puzzle of low take-up.
View TrialWe study the effect of two-sided limited information on job search, employment, and matching in the labour market.
View TrialCan microfinance borrowers use the discipline of regular loan repayments in order to accumulate savings if prompted to do so? In an experiment, we offered commercial savings products to the microfinance borrowers of Guatemala’s largest public-sector bank. We find that giving these borrowers the opportunity to develop a saving plan and be reminded of saving at the time of loan repayment caused no increase in the opening of savings accounts but led to balances among savers that were two and a half times those in the control. A second treatment arm that proposed a default savings contribution of 10% of the loan payment caused the fraction of clients using linked savings accounts to double as well as elevating deposits among savers, leading to final savings balances that were more than fi...
View TrialWe report on a field experiment using several methods for collecting deposits made in formal bank accounts in rural areas in Sri Lanka. We find that only frequent, face-to-face collection increases aggregate household savings. Collection involving community lock boxes increases balances at the collecting bank, but not overall household savings. Only community box collection appears to have the possibility of being financially viable. The various collection methods allow us to unbundle the role of frequency, salience and habit formation in deposit decisions. We find that frequency and salience affect the number of transactions, but not the level of savings.
View TrialThis document outlines a plan for a labor market intervention being conducted in several cities across South Africa in cooperation with the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Randomly altering the curriculum of Harambee's corporate work readiness training program to include a LinkedIn (the digital professional networking site) component will allow researchers to estimate the effect of the LinkedIn "treatment" on the long-run employment outcomes, professional networks, educational investments, and career expectations and aspirations of young work-seekers in South Africa.
View TrialOral rehydration salts (ORS) and zinc are highly effective at preventing child mortality from diarrhea yet they are widely underused throughout sub-Saharan Africa. This research aims to test the impact of a novel preemptive home-delivery intervention aimed at increasing the use of ORS and zinc for child diarrhea in Uganda. The intervention aims to increase availability of ORS and zinc and reduce barriers to access by having BRAC's community health promoters (CHPs) deliver the products directly to households for free prior to a diarrhea episode. Under this set-up, the products will be readily available for free immediately after a child comes down with diarrhea. Moreover, we will disentangle the mechanisms through which the intervention could change product use by using a multi-armed app...
View TrialDoes limited access to formal savings services impede business growth in poor countries? To shed light on this question, we randomized access to noninterest-bearing bank accounts among two types of self-employed individuals in rural Kenya: market vendors (who are mostly women) and men working as bicycle taxi drivers. Despite large withdrawal fees, a substantial share of market women used the accounts, were able to save more, and increased their productive investment and private expenditures. We see no impact for bicycletaxi drivers. These results imply significant barriers to savings and investment for market women in our study context.
View TrialThis article presents an experiment in which 49 Indonesian villages were randomly assigned to choose development projects through either representative-based meetings or direct election-based plebiscites. Plebiscites resulted in dramatically higher satisfaction among villagers, increased knowledge about the project, greater perceived benefits, and higher reported willingness to contribute. Changing the political mechanism had much smaller effects on the actual projects selected, with some evidence that plebiscites resulted in projects chosen by women being located in poorer areas. The results suggest that direct participation in political decision making can substantially increase satisfaction and legitimacy.
View TrialThis research implements a randomized-controlled trial in 171 secondary schools (~50,000 students) in northern Tanzania. The research cross-randomizes the provision of math textbooks, educational videos, and scholarship programs.
View TrialHow responsive are public administration institutions to different types of "behavioral" appeals? To study this question, we run a field experiment with public administrations in Germany. We write letters to all local-level tax authorities which include a request by our research institution to share non-confidential data for research purposes. The data-request letters embed a field experiment with four different groups in order to study if public administrations are responsive to some of the most common types of “behavioral” appeals: social norms, shaming and deterrence. In the social norm treatment, we inform tax authorities about the fact that we already received data from a non-negligible number of tax authorities. In the shaming treatment, we inform that the resulting research publi...
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