Access to Justice and Economic Development: A Field Experiment on “Remote Legal Aid” in Kenya

Last registered on January 22, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Access to Justice and Economic Development: A Field Experiment on “Remote Legal Aid” in Kenya
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010471
Initial registration date
January 06, 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 22, 2023, 10:46 AM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Matthieu Chemin
Affiliation
McGill University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-01-20
End date
2025-05-07
Keywords
Other
Additional Keywords
Law and Economics, Access to Justice
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Access to the formal legal system is limited in developing countries, which affects investment and economic development. In this project, we test the effects of a “remote legal aid” initiative, whereby legal aid is offered online to small-scale farmers involved in property rights disputes. This program may improve legal knowledge, access to courts, the security of property rights, and investment. This note describes the pre-analysis plan for this intervention.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Chemin, Matthieu. 2023. "Access to Justice and Economic Development: A Field Experiment on “Remote Legal Aid” in Kenya." AEA RCT Registry. January 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10471-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention will provide legal aid to small-scale farmers in Kenya, involved in various legal disputes. The legal aid will be provided online by law students from Canada and Kenya.
Intervention Start Date
2023-01-27
Intervention End Date
2025-01-18

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcomes are legal knowledge and conflict resolution.

We will use a difference-in-differences analysis, with time and individual fixed effects.

The research plan includes subgroup analyses by:

• Nature of the case

• Gender

• Education

• Age

Indices will be built to address the issue of multiple hyopthesis testing. We will present robustness checks with the Fisher test, adjustment for multiple hypothesis testing The randomization was stratified on 1) regions (8), and 2) time to disposition. These stratification dummies will be added to the model.

We will also present multiple robustness checks. We will use the randomization inference tests (Fisher exact test) which have been shown to outperform standard models especially in small samples (Young, 2019). We will address the concern of multiple hypothesis testing by using the Sharpened False Discovery Rate (FDR) adjusted q-values (Anderson, 2008) as well as building indices. We will address the issue of attrition with the Lee bounds (Lee, 2009).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
The secondary outcomes are:

• Property rights

• Land Investments

• Business

• Household Consumption

• Justice system perception

• Trust and Safety

• Happiness
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The unit of randomization is the individual. We will use a “paired” randomized design plan, whereby each participant is first paired with another one (based on 4 variables: nature of the case, gender, year of birth, years of education of the household head). Within each pair, we randomize who is treated and who is not. A robsutness check will be to drop the matched pair of an individual who has attrited.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
The randomization will be done in office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization is the individual.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
The planned number of observations is 780.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
N/A
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
McGill University
IRB Approval Date
2022-08-03
IRB Approval Number
274-1213
Analysis Plan