EEO-1 Disclosure

Last registered on April 04, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
EEO-1 Disclosure
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010692
Initial registration date
January 26, 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 30, 2023, 1:57 AM EST

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

Last updated
April 04, 2023, 12:56 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Stanford University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
PI Affiliation
Stanford University

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-01-01
End date
2023-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
EEO-1 reports are mandatory reports that provide a breakdown of the workforce of the firm by race and gender. These reports are filed privately with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and kept confidential. Only aggregate statistics have been disclosed by EEOC to inform the public of the status of equal employment across industries, regions, occupations, and positions. In recent years, however, more and more firms chose to voluntarily disclose their firm-level reports to the public. In order to understand the motivation for the public disclosure, we want to examine why some firms disclosure EEO1s and others don’t with a randomized control trial with an email intervention.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Choi, Jung Ho, Maureen McNichols and Maximilian Muhn. 2023. "EEO-1 Disclosure." AEA RCT Registry. April 04. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10692-1.2
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We are going to contact companies' departments handling these EEO-1 reports with an email intervention.
Intervention (Hidden)
In order to understand the motivation for firm's public disclosure, we want to reach out to all publicly listed firms that currently do not put the EEO-1 on their website and ask whether they are willing to voluntarily share a copy of their most recent EEO1 report (for our database; see below). Additionally, we want to vary the messaging of the emails -- in particular, we plan to use 2 x 2 design. We will have two treatment arms: 1) mentioning investors or employee interest and 2) peer disclosure behavior -- to get at causal treatment effects. We plan to reach out to HR and IR personnel at publicly listed firms.
Intervention Start Date
2023-02-27
Intervention End Date
2023-05-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We are interested in whether firms disclose EEO-1 reports responding to our email communication.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
We are also interesting in how stakeholders respond to this EEO-1 report database.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We plan to reach out publicly listed firms to understand their motivation to disclose EEO-1 reports.
Experimental Design Details
We plan to reach out all publicly listed firms and ask for a copy of their most recent EEO1 report. Additionally, we want to vary the messaging of the emails (e.g., mentioning investors interest; employee interest; peer disclosure behavior) to get at causal treatment effects. We plan to reach out to HR and IR personnel at a publicly listed firm.

1050 companies investors with peers, 1050 companies investors without peers, 1050 companies employees with peers, 1050 companies employees without peers

The main communication method is email. We plan to categorize these responses into either disclosure or non-disclosure. No response and an email with an explanation of not disclosing EEO-1 reports will be both coded as non-disclosure initially. However, we've noticed that in a pilot test, some firms indicate their interest in disclosing EEO-1 reports in the future.

In a subsequent research project (not part of this submission), we then want to use these disclosed EEO1 reports to build a publicly available and searchable EEO1 database. This database will allow to quickly and conveniently compare firms in a standardized way across key diversity metrics (or the lack of their public disclosure). Potentially, we then want to reach out key stakeholders (e.g., investors) to inform them about the availability of such a database. However, this can be a separate project and also depends on whether we are successful in collecting a sufficient number of disclosures.
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Firm
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
4200 companies
Sample size: planned number of observations
4200 companies
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1050 companies for each treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Stanford University
IRB Approval Date
2022-06-30
IRB Approval Number
IRB-Stanford-66540

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials