Earnings Disclosure by Politicians

Last registered on December 06, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Earnings Disclosure by Politicians
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012508
Initial registration date
November 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
December 06, 2023, 7:51 AM EST

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

Last updated
December 06, 2023, 8:56 AM EST

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Deutsche Bundesbank

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-12-07
End date
2024-01-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We study how German Members of Parliament (MPs) respond to disclosure of their outside earnings and activities. We use administrative tax return data and exploit institutional changes for federal MPs. To shed light into the mechanisms behind our findings, we aim to complement our results by adding a survey experiment among voters. We experimentally vary profiles of hypothetical MPs along several dimensions, one of which are outside earnings, and let voters rate them along several dimensions.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Neisser, Carina and Nils Wehrhöfer. 2023. "Earnings Disclosure by Politicians." AEA RCT Registry. December 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12508-1.1
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We plan to run a conjoint experiment. We present each respondent 3 profiles of hypothetical MPs and each profile is rated along various dimension (see below for the outcomes).
Intervention Start Date
2023-12-07
Intervention End Date
2024-01-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We consider five different outcomes that are based on voters’ evaluation of MPs. Voters evaluation of MPs whether (1) they represent the interests of their voters or (2) their own or third interests as well as whether they are (3) competent or (4) hard-working. All outcomes are measured on a 1-7 Likert scale and the order of questions is randomized for each respondent. We also plan to run heterogeneity analysis e.g. by self-reported political preference.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
First, we run a standard attention check. Then, each respondent is presented with 3 MP profiles. Each MP is randomly assigned the following characteristics: gender (male/female), marital status (single/married), party (center-left (SPD), conservative-right (CDU/CSU), liberal (FDP), green (Grüne) or left-wing (Die Linke), tenure in parliament (1,2, 3 or more legislative periods), mandate (directly elected or elected via party list), and published outside activities (no activities, lawyer, self-employed/entrepreneur, member of supervisory or advisory board, and speeches/journalistic work) and respective earnings (no earnings, earnings between 1,000-3,500 EUR, 3,500-7,000 EUR and 7,000 EUR and more). The ordering of the characteristics is randomized for each respondent. We are primarily interested in the effect of the published outside earnings and activities on voters’ preferences.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
The characteristics of the MPs are randomized by the survey provider by a computer. The characteristics of the MPs are randomized by the survey provider by a computer. We apply the following quotas: (1) gender (66% male, 35% female), (2) marital status (34% single, 66% married), (3) party (center-left (SPD) 32%, conservative-right (CDU/CSU) 30%, liberal (FDP) 14%, green (Die Grünen) 18% or left-wing (Die Linke) 6%, (4) tenure in parliament (1 (25%),2 (26%), 3 or more legislative periods) (49%), (5) mandate (directly elected (47%) or elected via party list (53%)), and (6) published outside activities (no activities and no earnings (25%), all remaining combinations of activities (lawyer, self-employed/entrepreneur, member of supervisory or advisory board, and speeches/journalistic work) and respective earnings (earnings between 1,000€ - 3,500€, 3,500€ - 7,000€ and 7,000€ and more) have a probability of 6.25%. The percentages of the demographic characteristics of MPs reflect the composition of the German Bundestag in the legislative period starting from 2021 and the earning categories refer to the offical brackets in which outside earnings are reported.
Randomization Unit
Each individual respondent is presented with 3 independently randomized profiles of MPs.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
We plan to cluster our standard errors on the level of the individual respondent (N=4,000).
Sample size: planned number of observations
We plan to have 4,000 respondents that are representative of German voters based on the latest federal election in the year 2021 along the following characteristics: age group, gender, East vs. West Germany, and party preference. Each respondent is presented with 3 independently randomized profiles of MPs. This gives us 12,000 observations.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We have four different treatment arms that are of primary interest for us. First, no outside earnings (sample size of 25% of # respondents = 1,000), outside earnings between 1000€ - 3500€ (sample size of 25% of # respondents = 1,000), outside earnings between 3500€ - 7000€ (sample size of 25% of # respondents = 1,000), outside earnings above 7000€ (sample size of 25% of # respondents = 1,000).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethics Committee of the University of Cologne, Germany
IRB Approval Date
2022-11-23
IRB Approval Number
220058CN

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