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Field
Trial Status
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Before
in_development
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After
on_going
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Field
Trial End Date
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Before
November 18, 2023
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After
March 15, 2026
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Field
Last Published
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Before
September 14, 2023 12:44 PM
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After
January 29, 2026 12:51 PM
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Field
Intervention End Date
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Before
November 18, 2023
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After
March 15, 2026
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
We intend to disseminate our survey to five groups of individuals: “most-elite” economists, “elite” economists, economists generally, journalists, and the general population. We are interested in these five distinct groups for a number of reasons. The first three groups provide gradations of career concerns etc. among economists who are likely to be most familiar with the particular institutional dynamics that we are interested in. Second, journalists are of interest to us because they represent a sample of “watchdogs” who are often trained to investigate and root out various kinds of potential misbehavior. That is, their opinions about what constitutes conflicts of interest – and if there exist discrepancies between what economists and journalists think – are of particular interest. Finally, we are interested in the opinions of the general public, who serve as another barometer of potential conflicts of interest. Though we cannot guarantee full access to contact information, we intend to identify the following four groups. We define the “most elite” group of economists as those participating in the “Expert Surveys” conducted by the Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. The number of active panelists in this group varies over time but is approximately 130 at the time of writing. We define the “elite” group of economists as those who are affiliated with either the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) or the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). Both are selective think tanks that require some kind of nomination and/or application for an economist to join. For the NBER, affiliates must have a primary appointment at a university, whereas CEPR affiliates may hold primary appointments at other institutions such as other think tanks, central banks, international organizations etc. Whereas the NBER membership is primarily American, CEPR membership is primarily European. We plan to construct the general sample of economists as a collection of economists in Javdani et al's database of economists (deduplicating the most elite, NBER and CEPR subgroups). We ensure that each economist respondent is a member of only one of these groups. The latter two groups are constructed as follows. We acquired the email IDs of journalists in the USA through presshunt.co who have accumulated one of the biggest journalist databases. We have about 13,000 email IDs of business and finance journalists and 5843 email IDs of journalists in government and politics. This sample of journalists is of interest to us because of their training/practice of journalism in addition to having some domain knowledge in economics/business. Finally, we intend to use YouGov’s services to identify a representative sample of the US population
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After
We intend to disseminate our survey to five groups of individuals: “most-elite” economists, “elite” economists, economists generally, journalists, and the general population. We are interested in these five distinct groups for a number of reasons. The first three groups provide gradations of career concerns etc. among economists who are likely to be most familiar with the particular institutional dynamics that we are interested in. Second, journalists are of interest to us because they represent a sample of “watchdogs” who are often trained to investigate and root out various kinds of potential misbehavior. That is, their opinions about what constitutes conflicts of interest – and if there exist discrepancies between what economists and journalists think – are of particular interest. Finally, we are interested in the opinions of the general public, who serve as another barometer of potential conflicts of interest. Though we cannot guarantee full access to contact information, we intend to identify the following four groups. We define the “most elite” group of economists as those participating in the “Expert Surveys” conducted by the Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. The number of active panelists in this group varies over time but is approximately 130 at the time of writing. We define the “elite” group of economists as those who are affiliated with either the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) or the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). Both are selective think tanks that require some kind of nomination and/or application for an economist to join. For the NBER, affiliates must have a primary appointment at a university, whereas CEPR affiliates may hold primary appointments at other institutions such as other think tanks, central banks, international organizations etc. Whereas the NBER membership is primarily American, CEPR membership is primarily European. We plan to construct the general sample of economists as a collection of economists in Javdani et al's database of economists (deduplicating the most elite, NBER and CEPR subgroups). We ensure that each economist respondent is a member of only one of these groups. The latter two groups are constructed as follows. We acquired the email IDs of journalists in the USA through presshunt.co who have accumulated one of the biggest journalist databases. We have about 13,000 email IDs of business and finance journalists and 5843 email IDs of journalists in government and politics. This sample of journalists is of interest to us because of their training/practice of journalism in addition to having some domain knowledge in economics/business. Finally, we intend to use YouGov’s services to identify a representative sample of the US population
Addendum (01/27/2026)
Following the original "within-subjects" experiment outline above, we intend to supplement our findings with a "between-subjects" design. The original manuscript employed a within-subject design where respondents: 1) read a description of a scientific finding; 2) reported their initial level of trust in the finding; 3) received additional information about the researcher's potential conflicts of interest; and 4) re-reported their revised level of trust. THe primary outcome was the "trust reduction" the difference between initial and revised trust levels.
The between-subjects design randomizes respondents to different information conditions rather than measures within-person revisions. Per vignette, respondents will be randomized into either the "Baseline" arm (respondents receive only the scientific finding, no CoI information); or one of the "Treatment" arms (respondents receive the scientific finding plus various CoI disclosures). The analog the trust reduction from the within-subject design in the between-subject design iis the difference between mean reported trust level reported by those respondents who where assigned to the Baseline arm and those who were assigned to the treatment arms.
In contrast to the within-subjects design where all respondents saw all vignettes (in a random order), respondents to the between-subjects instrument will be exposed to only a single vignette.
This between-subjects instrument will be disseminated to a representative sample of the United States general population using Prolific, and industry-standard online experiment platform.
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Field
Randomization Method
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Before
randomization done by qualtrics in the survey vignettes
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After
Randomization done by qualtrics in the survey vignettes
Addendum (01/27/2026)
Randomization will be conducted by Qualtrics in each survey vignette with a quota/allocation rule that targets particular minimum detectable effects (MDEs) as outlined in the pre-analysis plan (PAP)
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Field
Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
3 Major Clusters - Economists, Journalists, General public
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After
3 Major Clusters - Economists, Journalists, General public
Addendum (01/27/2026)
The between-subjects instrument will recruit a sample from the general population.
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
We expect 2000 economists, 2000 Journalists, 1500 general public
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After
We expect 2000 economists, 2000 Journalists, 1500 general public
Addendum (01/26/2026)
The between-subjects instrument will target a total recruitment of 20,878 respondents across all vignettes.
Addendum (01/27/2026)
The between-subjects instrument will target a total recruitment of 20,878 respondents.
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
Each cluster has its own treatment arm (a separate survey for each), therefore 3. Economists, Journalists, General public
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After
Each cluster has its own treatment arm (a separate survey for each), therefore 3. Economists, Journalists, General public
Addendum (01/27/2026)
Due to the large number of treatment arms and different targeted sample sizes (informed by pilot findings), please refer to the pre-analysis plan (PAP) for per-arm target sample sizes.
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Field
Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes
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Before
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After
Addendum (01/27/2026)
Due to the large number of treatment arms and different targeted sample sizes (informed by pilot findings), please refer to the pre-analysis plan (PAP) for per-arm minimum detectable effect sizes (MDEs)
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