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Field
Trial Title
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Before
Digital Innovation in Ghana - Interventions Targeted at Addressing Leakage (DIGITAL)
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After
Automating Public Distribution Programs - Experimental Evidence from Ghana's PREMIX
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Abstract
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Before
We study Ghana’s Premix Fuel Program – a large “conditional” transfer program subsidizing premix fuel for fishermen in Ghana. Subsidized fuel is hoarded, creating artificial shortages and prices that defy the program’s spirit. We partner with the National Premix Fuel Secretariat, which manages the Program. The Secretariat is preparing to rollout a nationwide program that will digitize access to subsidized fuel to reduce leakages. Some experimentation already took place, so the technical feasibility of the process is not in question. Following our interactions, the Secretariat is willing to stagger rollout of the digitization program. We proceed as follows. First, multi-cohort randomization across landing the 315 beaches (234 communities) will determine the timing of the staggered rollout. Second, survey of fishermen and villagers to track: fuel usage, leakage, poverty, and economic/environmental/social outcomes the digitization may improve, including community-wide spillovers and general equilibrium effects. We implement innovative measures for fuel diversion and quality: (i) administrative data on amount of fuel delivered to the community versus survey data and (ii) audit studies to estimate black-market prices and quantities. We deploy Quality Assurance Teams to measure the quality of premix fuel in circulation across communities. We also use high-frequency measures of air pollution by (i) installing outdoor monitors and (ii) use available satellite and remote sensing data.
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After
We study Ghana’s Premix Fuel Program – a large “conditional” transfer program subsidizing premix fuel for fishermen in Ghana. Subsidized fuel is hoarded, creating artificial shortages and prices that defy the program’s spirit. We partner with the National Premix Fuel Secretariat, which manages the Program. The Secretariat/Government of Ghana is preparing to rollout a nationwide program that will automate access to subsidized fuel to monitor its distribution and reduce leakages. Some experimentation already took place, so the technical feasibility of the process is not in question. Following our interactions, the Secretariat is willing to randomize across 234 villages (which will be in cohorts) the switch from village committee-based distribution of PREMIX fuel to Automated PREMIX fuel Dispensing and Monitoring System that come with personalized canoe identification cards. We proceed as follows. First, multi-cohort randomization across the 234 villages (315 beaches) will determine the timing of the rollout. Second, survey of fishermen and villagers to track: fuel usage, leakage, poverty, and economic/environmental/social outcomes the automation may improve, including village-wide spillovers and general equilibrium effects. We implement innovative measures for fuel diversion and quality: (i) administrative data on amount of fuel delivered to the village versus survey data, including estimates of black-market prices and quantities. We deploy Quality Assurance Teams to measure the quality of premix fuel in circulation across villages. We also use high-frequency measures of air pollution by (i) installing outdoor monitors and (ii) use available satellite and remote sensing data.
We compare two distribution alternatives within Ghana’s PREMIX fuel assistance program:
(i) Village committee-based distribution (status quo) vs (ii) Automated dispensing and monitoring system (new monitoring technology).
We will use this to document how monitoring technologies improve the distribution and poverty effects of public assistance programs by helping to bring in (or include) poor excluded beneficiaries. Indeed, when and how "changes" in the delivery (or distribution) of public assistance programs reduce poverty is a significant yet poorly understood issue.
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Trial End Date
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Before
July 31, 2024
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After
October 31, 2024
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Last Published
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Before
July 19, 2023 02:33 PM
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After
January 01, 2024 05:16 AM
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Intervention (Public)
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Before
The Secretariat (or government partner) has provided listing of all the landing beaches (N=234 communities, where the beneficiaries are located and the digitization program will be deployed). We will randomly assign these communities via a multi-cohort community-level field experiment to examine the general equilibrium effects of the digitization program. "Digitization" (or automation) consists of modernized stations, to be constructed and introduced nationally, where fishermen can access subsidized PREMIX fuel. This station includes an (i) automated dispenser system (ADS), which only operates with personalized-biometric cards that will be issued to all canoes / owners, (ii) an office for station manager and landing beach committee (LBC), (iii) toilet facility; along with (iv) a live CCTV camera. Its central goal is to prevent leakages or diversions in the PREMIX program. "Cohort" denotes the set of communities (or landing beaches) that the Secretariat has operationally chosen to automate at different milestones -- averaging around 50 communities per cohort.
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After
The Secretariat (or government partner) has provided listing of all the landing beaches (N=234 villages, where the beneficiaries are located and the automation program will be deployed). We will randomly assign these fishing villages via a multi-cohort village-level field experiment to examine the general equilibrium effects of the automation program. "Digitization" (or automation) consists of modernized stations, to be constructed and introduced nationally, where fishermen can access subsidized PREMIX fuel. This station includes an (i) automated dispenser system (ADS), which only operates with personalized-biometric cards that will be issued to all canoes / owners, (ii) an office for station manager and landing beach committee (LBC), (iii) toilet facility; along with (iv) a live CCTV camera. Its central goal is to prevent leakages or diversions in the PREMIX program. "Cohort" denotes the set of villages (which contain landing beaches) that the Secretariat has operationally chosen to automate at different milestones -- averaging around 50 villages per cohort.
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Intervention End Date
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Before
February 29, 2024
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After
March 31, 2024
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
1) Premix fuel delivery and usage, including detailed information about business outcomes (e.g., lines of business: fishing vs non-fishing; employment; revenues; assets; profits; boat or canoe failures; fishing rates, etc.), beneficiaries’ perceptions about and preferences for the digitization program, likelihood of having access to premix fuel in the community, prices beneficiaries pay for fuel (both premix and non-premix fuel), prices of fish, etc.
2) Leakages across local communities by (i) comparing (the Secretariat's) administrative data and (the PIs) survey data and (ii) audit study whereby trained auditors attempt to engage in black market transactions.
3) Poverty: The communities are low-income and poor environments. We field questions to directly examine poverty. We will adapt a recently developed measure of poverty, called the “Simple Poverty Scorecard”, that is rigorous, inexpensive, simple, and transparent (for details, see Schreiner 2015). We will complement this with data on:
*(i) Household expenses (food, bills, education, health, durables / appliances / accessories, personal care, durables) and
*(ii) Subjective and objective inclusion/exclusion indexes reflecting whether: every fisherman has the opportunity to official PREMIX, LBC leaders avoid playing favorites, fishermen in community treated fairly and/or full in access to official PREMIX, fishermen excited that LBC leaders will welcome and support them, fishermen feel like beneficiaries of program, fishermen perspectives are counted/included in PREMIX decision making by LBC leaders; fishermen have not had access to PREMIX for for long time and/or denied access to the official PREMIX.
4) Quality of premix fuel in circulation across communities by deploying NPA’s Quality Assurance Team to randomly conduct quality checks and certification tests at across select communities.
5) Air pollution and carbon emission across communities by deploying NPA’s Quality Assurance Team to install and monitor outdoor pollution trackers across select communities. We will complement this with available satellite and remote sensing data.
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After
1) Premix fuel delivery and usage, including detailed information about business outcomes (e.g., lines of business: fishing vs non-fishing; employment; revenues; assets; profits; boat or canoe failures; fishing rates, etc.), beneficiaries’ perceptions about and preferences for the digitization program, likelihood of having access to premix fuel in the village, political affiliations and perceptions, prices beneficiaries pay for fuel (both premix and non-premix fuel), prices of fish, etc.
2) Leakages across fishing villages by (i) comparing (the Secretariat's) administrative data and (the PIs) survey data, including measurement of black market activities.
3) Poverty: The villages are low-income and poor environments. We field questions to directly examine poverty. We will adapt a recently developed measure of poverty, called the “Simple Poverty Scorecard”, that is rigorous, inexpensive, simple, and transparent (for details, see Schreiner 2015). We will complement this with data on:
*(i) Household expenses (food, bills, education, health, durables / appliances / accessories, personal care, durables) and
*(ii) Subjective and objective inclusion/exclusion indexes reflecting whether: every fisherman has the opportunity to official PREMIX, LBC leaders avoid playing favorites, fishermen in village treated fairly and/or full in access to official PREMIX, fishermen excited that LBC leaders will welcome and support them, fishermen feel like beneficiaries of program, fishermen perspectives are counted/included in PREMIX decision making by LBC leaders; fishermen have not had access to PREMIX for for long time and/or denied access to the official PREMIX.
4) Quality of premix fuel in circulation across villages by deploying NPA’s Quality Assurance Team to randomly conduct quality checks and certification tests at across select villages.
5) Air pollution and carbon emission across villages by deploying NPA’s Quality Assurance Team to install and monitor outdoor pollution trackers across select villages. We will complement this with available satellite and remote sensing data.
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
In total:
1) Treatment: 60% of communities as Treatment communities (Digitize: apply the automation technology "EARLIER" to enforce monitoring of fuel subsidies and avoid diversions of premix fuel; N=~140).
2) Control: 40% of communities as Control communities (Status Quo = no digitization until "LATER" after 3-4 months per cohort; N=~94). For each cohort of communities, after 3-4 months, all the control communities will be also digitized. This delayed digitization of control communities agrees with the Secretariat’s resource and capacity constraints and have hence agreed to enroll their automation program according this design.
We will be able to detect digitization effects by measuring differences between the Control and Treatment arms. We will also be able to detect community-wide spillovers and equilibrium effects by (i) comparing beneficiaries to non-beneficiaries in Treatment communities; (ii) measuring differences between communities with more vs less beneficiaries in Treatment communities, including (iii) measuring changes in prices across nearby commercial fuel outlets.
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After
In total:
1) Treatment: 60% of villages as Treatment villages (Automate: apply the automation technology "EARLIER" to enforce monitoring of fuel subsidies and avoid diversions of premix fuel; N=~140).
2) Control: 40% of villages as Control villages (Status Quo = no automation until "LATER" after 3-4 months per cohort; N=~94). For each cohort of fishing villages, after 3-4 months, all the control villages will be also digitized. This delayed automation of control villages agrees with the Secretariat’s resource and capacity constraints and have hence agreed to enroll their automation program according this design.
We will be able to detect automation effects by measuring differences between the Control and Treatment arms. We will also be able to detect village-wide spillovers and equilibrium effects by (i) comparing beneficiaries to non-beneficiaries in Treatment villages; (ii) measuring differences between villages with more vs less beneficiaries in Treatment villages, including (iii) measuring changes in prices across nearby commercial fuel outlets.
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Randomization Method
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Before
Computer software and simple lotteries, while ensuring balance on observable characteristics (Bruhn and McKenzie [2009])
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After
Computer software and covariate-constrained randomization (we have small number of clusters/villages per cohort), ensuring balance on relevant characteristics (Bruhn and McKenzie [2009]; Ivers et al. [2012])
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Randomization Unit
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Before
Randomization is at the community-level, stratified based on districts, and all misfits (if any) resolved and randomly assigned.
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After
Randomization is at the village-level.
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Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
Number of communities: 234
Number of districts (larger administrative units containing multiple localities): 26
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After
Number of fishing villages: 234
Number of districts (larger administrative units containing multiple villages): 26
Number of regions (larger administrative units containing multiple districts): 9
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Planned Number of Observations
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Before
Number of communities: 234
*Number of (direct) beneficiaries: 234 communities x about 65 canoes per community = around 15,210 canoes
*Number of (direct) beneficiaries: 234 communities x about 65 canoes per community x 15 employees per canoe = around 228,150 employees
*Number of non-beneficiaries (indirect): over 3 million people across all fishing communities
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After
Number of fishing villages: 234
*Number of (direct) beneficiaries: 234 villages x about 5 canoe owners per village = around 1,170 owners
*Number of (direct) beneficiaries: 234 villages x about 5 canoe employees/workers per village = around 1,170 employees
*Number of non-beneficiaries (indirect): 234 villages x about 5 non-beneficiaries per village = around 1,170 individuals not engaged in fishing business.
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Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
140 communities (Treatment);
94 communities (Control program)
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After
140 villages (Treatment);
94 villages (Control program)
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