Planning for Productive Migration

Last registered on March 06, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Planning for Productive Migration
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013065
Initial registration date
February 20, 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
March 06, 2024, 2:56 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
Allison Grossman
Affiliation
Tulane University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Darin Christens
PI Affiliation
UCLA
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PI Name
Guy Grossman
PI Affiliation
University of Pennsylvania
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PI Name
Jeremy Weinstein
PI Affiliation
Stanford University
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PI Name
Jessica Wolff
PI Affiliation
Stanford University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-05-08
End date
2025-05-31
Keywords
Behavior, Labor, Welfare
Additional Keywords
migration
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
In many poor countries, youth in rural areas struggle to get jobs or start new businesses. Nevertheless, most economic development interventions prioritize “development in place,” rather than facilitating movement to places or sectors with greater opportunity. The Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University, in collaboration with Mercy Corps, will evaluate an alternative approach, which helps young men living in rural and peri-urban Niger plan for migration to neighboring ECOWAS countries to find work. The Planning for Productive Migration (PPM) program informs young men about the opportunities and risks associated with migration to different destinations, facilitates conversations within families around migration, and provides a cash transfer to offset the costs of cross-border travel to stable ECOWAS countries. We benchmark this program against an unconditional cash transfer (UCT) and control condition.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Christens, Darin et al. 2024. "Planning for Productive Migration." AEA RCT Registry. March 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13065-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The PPM program facilitates safe, legal, and productive migration by relieving constraints that prevent young people from migrating to find higher paying work. These barriers include: lack of capital to finance the journey, missing legal documents that prevent exploitation, little experience planning and managing finances, opposition by family members concerned that migrants will not share benefits, and incomplete
information regarding the value and availability of economic opportunities in destinations. By relieving these constraints the project is intended to improve the economic, psychological, and social well-being of potential migrants and their families. The program is implemented by Mercy Corps (MC) and was designed in collaboration with faculty affiliates of the Immigration Policy Lab (IPL) at Stanford University.

The program’s theory of change is that we can increase the rates of and returns from migration through a set of complementary interventions: support considering opportunities and planning migration journeys, support accessing required travel documents and vaccinations, and facilitated household dialogues to help households collaboratively plan for migration. Upon completion of these activities, participants
receive a cash transfer calibrated to offset the costs of round-trip travel to popular locations within ECOWAS. By providing this support, the program should enable households to diversify their livelihoods through productive migration to desired locations and improve their economic and psycho-social wellbeing
Intervention Start Date
2023-07-10
Intervention End Date
2023-12-03

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We expect PPM to affect the outcomes described below. Outcomes are grouped by family and respondent type: prospective migrant (PM), household (HH), second household member (SHM), and woman household member (W). We conduct one-sided tests when we have strong priors about the direction of the treatment effects of PPM for an outcome. These outcomes are marked with a + sign, and we conduct two-sided tests for other outcomes.

Greater detail about each outcome and index construction can be found in the attached PDF. Only the primary outcome families are listed here. Secondary outcome families can be found in the attached document.
Primary outcomes grouped by family for the PM:

*Manipulation Check*
- Knowledge of regular migration +
- Possession of travel documents +
- Consultation with HH about migration +
- Knowledge of soft skills +

*Migration*
- Intent to migrate+
- Preparation to migrate+
- Cross-border migration+
- Weeks spent abroad+
- ECOWAS migration+
- Domestic migration+
- Travel distance+

*Economic well-being*
- Paid employment
- Income
- Savings
- Consumption
- Food insecurity
- Economic precarity

*Physical health and safety*
- Absence of harassment and violence
- Physical health

*Mental health*
- Emotional well-being
- Stress: family
- Stress: economic

*Joint decisionmaking*
- Consult with spouse
- Consult with family on issues other than migration
- Consult with family about migration+

*Attitudes and values*
- Aspirations+
- Social liberalism: gender attitudes+
- Social liberalism: secularism +
- Tolerance +
- Cosmopolitanism +
- Democracy+

Primary outcomes grouped by family: HoH
*Economic wellbeing*
- Agricultural income per capita (time:last season)
- Livestock income per capita
- Other income per capita
- Business income per capita (time:
last 3 months)
- Remittance income: international
- Remittance income: domestic
- Savings per capita (net of debt)
- Consumption per capita
- Food insecurity: adults
- Economic precarity (events)
- Economic precarity (cost)

*Investment*
- Business investment (livestock purchase, business/land improvement)
- Education (cost per child)
- Education (number of children enrolled)
- Assets (duable goods, livestock, home, land)

Primary outcomes grouped by family: SHM

*Physical health and safety*
- Absence of harassment and violence
- Physical health

*Mental health*
- Emotional well-being
- Stress: family
- Stress: economic

*Joint decisionmaking*
- Consult with spouse
- Consult with family on issues other than migration
- Consult with family about migration+
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Section 6.1 defines outcome construction.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Section 6.2 defines our secondary outcomes
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study’ includes ~3,000 households, which are drawn from 142 localities across 8 communes in Tahoua District, Niger.

We use a two-stage randomization. First, we randomize localities into Mercy Corps programming (MC) or pure control (PC). Treated locations receive programming, whereas pure control locations do not. The unit of randomization at this stage is the locality. This randomization is blocked on commune, with the probability of assignment to MC set to 60%. We sample ~30 households in localities assigned to MC and just 7 households in localities assigned to PC.

Second, within villages with Mercy Corps programing, we randomize households into three arms: PPM, UCT, and control (C). The unit of randomization at this second stage is the household. This randomization is blocked on village, and the probability of assignment to PPM is 0.36, and the probability of assignment to either UCT or C is 0.32
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization implemented in R.
Randomization Unit
See response to experimental design.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
142
Sample size: planned number of observations
3000 households
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
The study’ includes ~3,000 households, which are drawn from 142 localities across 8 communes in Tahoua District, Niger.
89 clusters in program, 59 clusters in pure control.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Stanford University PANEL ON NON-MEDICAL HUMAN SUBJECTS
IRB Approval Date
2022-10-31
IRB Approval Number
67651
IRB Name
UCLA OHRPP
IRB Approval Date
2023-03-20
IRB Approval Number
22-001731
IRB Name
University of Pennsylvania
IRB Approval Date
2022-12-09
IRB Approval Number
852431
Analysis Plan

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