Financial Concerns, Labor Income Discounting, and Labor Market Decisions

Last registered on June 08, 2023
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Financial Concerns, Labor Income Discounting, and Labor Market Decisions
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010331
Initial registration date
January 23, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 27, 2023, 2:29 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
June 08, 2023, 5:24 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Brazil
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Thiago Scarelli
Affiliation
Paris School of Economics
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2023-01-24
End date
2023-01-31
Keywords
Behavior, Finance & Microfinance, Labor
Additional Keywords
Work Contracts, Financial Constraints, Time Preferences, Self-employment, Gig Economy, Ridesharing, Brazil.
JEL code(s)
D91; J22; J24; J31; M52
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This research aims to investigate if financial concerns can affect the workers' choices when facing contracts that differ in the proposed delay between a task and its respective remuneration.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Scarelli, Thiago. 2023. "Financial Concerns, Labor Income Discounting, and Labor Market Decisions." AEA RCT Registry. June 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10331-2.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2023-01-24
Intervention End Date
2023-01-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcome is the implicit time preference in an applied labor market context.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The reported preference in a sequence of choices between immediate payment versus a higher payment deferred by 30 days, which is an adaptation of the staircase method to infer time preference.

This primary outcome will be analyzed in two ways. First, the choice sequence is transformed into a corresponding discount rate using the midpoint of the range revealed to be acceptable by the respondent. Secondly, under milder assumptions, the choices can be seen simply as ordered bins, in which case the outcome would be a categorical variable.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Stratified randomization of exposure to questions about financial conditions.
Experimental Design Details
One in every three drivers is randomly invited to discuss how they would cover an emergency expense that particular week. The second treatment group, of similar size, is asked what they would do if they received an unexpected payment that specific week. In both cases, the nominal amount proposed is slightly above one month's worth of the national minimum wage.
Randomization Method
The randomization is done by the survey platform (Qualtrics).
Randomization Unit
The randomization is at the individual response level.

This randomization will be stratified by region, with the region defined as (a) the capital of the State and the surrounding cities or (b) the remaining cities in the State, for each State in the country. The stratification aims to achieve balance in the treatment groups in each of those geographical areas.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
No clusters.
Sample size: planned number of observations
6 000 individuals (expected).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2 000 in the control group, 2 000 in each of the two treatment groups (expected).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
With a minimum of 4 707 observations (i.e., 1 569 individuals in each of the three groups of this implementation design), a two-sided significance test at a 5\% level would be able to detect a potential effect with a magnitude greater than 0.1 standard deviations with 80\% statistical power in pairwise group comparison. Since the sample size is expected to be larger, we expect to recover estimates slightly more precisely than that. Yet, the exact number of observations will depend on the actual response rate.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Paris School of Economics (PSE)
IRB Approval Date
2022-07-08
IRB Approval Number
2022-012
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
January 31, 2023, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
January 31, 2023, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
14 300 ridesharing drivers
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials