(In)Compatibility of laptops and smartphones in the U.S. market

Last registered on January 17, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
(In)Compatibility of laptops and smartphones in the U.S. market
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012680
Initial registration date
December 12, 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 20, 2023, 12:51 PM EST

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

Last updated
January 17, 2024, 5:06 PM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Yuval Lidany
Affiliation
Boston College
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-01-31
End date
2024-05-31
Keywords
Lab
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
WTP, products compatibility, causality
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The study examines agents' WTP for smartphones given product information.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Lidany, Yuval. 2024. "(In)Compatibility of laptops and smartphones in the U.S. market." AEA RCT Registry. January 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12680-1.3
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Information provision experiment:
Participants report on their WTP for a smartphone, given $799 and a laptop lottery prizes they may win.
Then, participants are provided with product information and again asked for their smartphone WTP for a given lottery prize.
Intervention Start Date
2024-01-31
Intervention End Date
2024-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Within subjects: the difference between a participant's willingness to pay for a smartphone when it is compatible and incompatible with a laptop when subjects know about the benefit of smartphone-laptop compatibility features.

The goal is to prove causality between owned laptops and offered-to-purchase smartphones due to product compatibility.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Compatibility examples: texting and calling from a laptop, copy-paste across devices.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Across subjects: the difference between participants' willingness to pay for a smartphone when it is compatible and incompatible with a laptop when subjects know about the benefit of smartphone-laptop compatibility features.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Compatibility examples: texting and calling from a laptop, copy-paste across devices.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Agents participate in a lottery for a laptop and $799. Participants have the opportunity to offer a price for a smartphone. After the experiment, we draw a lottery winner and a price, P. If the drawn price P is higher than the winner's offer, the lottery winner wins the laptop and $799; otherwise, the winner wins the laptop, the smartphone, and $799-$P.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is done in the office by a computer. The computer chooses the lottery winner, the random price P, the question that dictates the laptop the winner can win, and the smartphone can be purchased.
Randomization Unit
We use randomization at the individual level for the lottery winner, and the smartphone can be purchased.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
One cluster, 1000 individuals.
We may have a small group that receives the product information immediately, i.e., they are not first providing WTP without any information on goods compatibility. This is done to examine if an anchoring effect exists and measure its size.
Sample size: planned number of observations
1000 individuals.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1000 individuals receive the same treatment but in a random order.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Consider the least optimistic and most pessimistic scenarios based on the pilots we ran. Under both scenarios, the power is 95%, α = 0.05, and the units of the change in WTP are US dollars. Optimistic: change in WTP = 40.0000, SD = 225.0000, required sample size = 823 individuals. Pessimistic: change in WTP = 35.0000, SD = 230.0000, required sample size = 1123 individuals.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
BOSTON COLLEGE Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2023-07-11
IRB Approval Number
24.020.01e
Analysis Plan

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