Barriers to Civic Action on Air Pollution

Last registered on January 19, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Barriers to Civic Action on Air Pollution
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012818
Initial registration date
January 15, 2024

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 19, 2024, 2:07 PM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Teevrat Garg
Affiliation
UCSD
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Patrick Baylis
PI Affiliation
UBC
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PI Name
Shweta Bhogale
PI Affiliation
JPAL
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-01-11
End date
2025-01-11
Keywords
Behavior, Environment & Energy
Additional Keywords
Air Pollution, Civic Engagement, Information Constraints
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
In numerous developing urban areas, there is a prevalent issue of high levels of air pollution, leading to increasingly severe consequences. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one out of every nine global deaths can be attributed to air pollution, with 90% of these fatalities occurring in low and middle-income countries (WHO 2016). This problem is particularly critical in India, which is home to 14 of the world's 20 most polluted cities. Some estimates suggest that if New Delhi were to meet the air quality standards set by the WHO, it could potentially extend the average life expectancy by up to 10 years (Greenstone and Fan, 2019).

Despite the significant health toll that air pollution exacts in these areas, there is a notable absence of public pressure on elected officials to implement policy solutions that would improve air quality. The demand for air quality improvements among the public seems to be relatively low. However, information has the potential to be a powerful tool in aligning people's beliefs and preferences with the goal of cleaner air, thereby incentivizing policymakers to respond to this demand. The central questions here are: Can information be a driving force in generating civic demand for better air quality? And in what manner does information act as a barrier? Is it more critical to emphasize the adverse effects of pollution exposure (related to individual stakes and beliefs) or to help citizens overcome the perception that this issue cannot be resolved by highlighting state capacity and action (fatalism concerning state)?

This study aims to investigate whether the limited private demand for reductions in air pollution plays a significant role in explaining the persistence of poor air quality. Such an understanding is crucial for governments to prioritize efforts to combat air pollution and reduce pollution-related mortality. To achieve this goal, we intend to conduct an incentivized field experiment to gauge and compare private demand for cleaner air with the corresponding willingness of the public to engage in various civic actions that would lead to improved air quality. Furthermore, we will evaluate how different information treatments influence these measures and whether they increase support for environmental safeguards.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Baylis, Patrick, Shweta Bhogale and Teevrat Garg. 2024. "Barriers to Civic Action on Air Pollution ." AEA RCT Registry. January 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12818-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our information interventions are designed to meaningfully increase respondents’ willingness to engage in civic action by solving possible market failures that could stand in their way. Both our treatment arms will examine two types of potential information barriers including health impacts of air pollution and state capacity and action targeted towards air pollution.
Intervention Start Date
2024-01-24
Intervention End Date
2024-03-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Willingness to pay for clean air quality through incentivized offers for air purifiers and pollution masks
Stated preferences for pollution avoidance behavior and civic engagement
Revealed willingness to engage in civic actions that vary across effort/time cost as measured on our app
Preferences for specific anti-pollution policies and hypothetical political representatives with differing air quality priorities
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Revealed willingness to engage in civic actions that vary across effort/time cost as measured on our app: we will test whether respondents are more likely to click on action buttons that allow them to file complaints or sign petitions when the option is readily available to them in our notification versus when they have to navigate back to the home screen to choose in an effort to vary time cost of taking the action.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
All our treatment arms will examine potential information barriers:

1. To test for the possibility that individuals are poorly informed about air pollution, this group will be provided with periodic reminders of the current level of air pollution as well as its health effects.
2. To test for the possibility that respondents don’t think that there are viable paths to pollution reduction by engaging with policy, this arm will describe several concrete policy changes and local state actions that could substantially reduce air pollution and benefit from their engagement.
3. To measure the effect of only providing local air quality information on mobilizing demand for air quality as a yardstick for our other treatments

All treatment groups will receive information on different actions they can take to directly engage with civic agencies and local governments – privately or publicly, or indirectly through petitions. For this, we will examine participants’ willingness to participate in a range of civic actions targeted to improve air quality. We will vary the effort and time cost (but not monetary costs) of engaging in these actions through our app by embedding the ease with which these action buttons are accessible for a random subset of our participants to see if the users are willing to act despite the added friction introduced by the app. This is to test whether respondents are willing to send costless signals but that willingness to participate quickly declines as the cost of the action rises in terms of effort or time. Such nudges will be introduced regularly (likely, weekly).
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is done using Stata Packages.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
NA
Sample size: planned number of observations
2000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
NA
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IFMR Human Subjects Committee
IRB Approval Date
2018-08-18
IRB Approval Number
NA
IRB Name
UCSD IRB Administration
IRB Approval Date
2023-11-01
IRB Approval Number
IRB# 808652
IRB Name
UBC
IRB Approval Date
2023-12-19
IRB Approval Number
H23-03870
Analysis Plan