|
Field
Trial End Date
|
Before
March 31, 2025
|
After
June 30, 2025
|
|
Field
Last Published
|
Before
July 30, 2024 10:21 AM
|
After
May 13, 2025 06:53 AM
|
|
Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
|
Before
- Number of cross-border trading trips;
- Number of cross-border trading trips through official border crossings;
- Number of cross-border trading trips through unofficial border crossings;
- Business performance (e.g., volume of trade, number of employees, revenue, profit);
- Incidence of key risks (bribe-paying, harassment, confiscation of goods, arrest) at the official and unofficial border;
- Beliefs about key risks (bribe-paying, harassment, confiscation of goods, arrest) at the official and unofficial border;
These outcomes will be measured through a high-frequency phone survey and an in-person endline survey.
|
After
- Number of cross-border trading trips
- Number of cross-border trading trips through official border crossings;
- Number of cross-border trading trips through unofficial border crossings;
- Business performance (e.g., volume of trade, number of employees, revenue, profit);
These outcomes will be measured through a high-frequency phone survey and an in-person endline survey.
|
|
Field
Experimental Design (Public)
|
Before
The design of the RCT includes a baseline, an intervention, high-frequency follow-up phone calls, and an endline in-person survey.
We will randomize a sample of traders who commonly engage in cross-border trading between Kenya and Uganda into three experimental groups. Treatment 1 - CASH will consist of cash payments conditional on conducting trading trips through official border crossings. Treatment 2 - CASH + INFORMATION will combine Treatment 1 with information from our baseline survey on the relative risks of conducting cross-border trade through official and unofficial border crossings. Control subjects will not receive any treatment.
|
After
The design of the RCT includes a baseline, an intervention, high-frequency follow-up phone calls, and an endline in-person survey.
We randomly sample traders who commonly engage in cross-border trading between Kenya and Uganda. We randomize traders into treatment 1 and control, and assign a second randomly sampled group to treatment 2. Control subjects (randomized) will not receive any treatment. Treatment 1 - CASH (randomized) will consist of cash payments conditional on conducting trading trips through official border crossings. Treatment 2 - CASH + INFORMATION (randomly sampled) will combine Treatment 1 with information from our baseline survey on the relative risks of conducting cross-border trade through official and unofficial border crossings.
|
|
Field
Randomization Method
|
Before
The randomization will be carried out using software that will assign participants to the different treatment groups.
|
After
The randomization will be carried out using software that will assign participants to the different experimental groups.
|
|
Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
|
Before
- Types of goods traded;
- Monetary Cost of crossing the border (including official costs, and unofficial costs, e.g. bribes).
|
After
- Cross-border trading activities (number and types of goods; consistency of trips; crossing points);
- Domestic trading activities (any; number and types of goods);
- Business scale (number and type of markets used (selling and buying); consistency; number of supplyers; any new suppliers; any new customers; changed trading activities (new products, new markets, new trading routes);
- Profit re-investment (profit margin; share of profits re-invested; usage of windfall profits);
- Liquidity constraints (accumulation of last trip profits needed to conduct next trip; cash availability constrains desired trading trips);
- Credit (formal credit; informal borrowing);
- Financial health (savings; loans repaid);
- Assets and investment (value of goods stocks; purchase of vehicles, agricultural assets, household assets; improvements to dwelling; other significant purchases; use of rosca to finance trips);
- Household welfare (food expenditures; missed meals; meat consumption; expenditures on "special foods", school fees, medical expenses, funerals/weddings, gifts, other important items);
- Labor supply (hours worked in trading; hours worked in agriculture; hours worked in other income generating activities);
- Beliefs about trading profitability (number of possible profitable trips next months; plan to engage in more trips; min/max expected trading trip profit);
- Coordination among traders (e.g., in organizing trading trips, looking for sellers/customers, sharing information)
- Incidence of key risks (bribe-paying, harassment, confiscation of goods, arrest) at the official and unofficial border;
- Beliefs about key risks (bribe-paying, harassment, confiscation of goods, arrest) at the official and unofficial border; feeling safe at official border; gender issues at border;
- Monetary Cost of crossing the border (including official costs, and unofficial costs, e.g. bribes).
These outcomes will be measured through an in-person endline survey, and a small subset through a high-frequency phone survey.
Dimensions of heterogeneity analysis include: gender; baseline: degree of formality, beliefs, firm size, border crossing/location, types of goods traded, experience/age, trading intensity (number of crossings), is a farmer, number of markets/suppliers bought from, number of markets sold to, domestic trade vs cross-border only, exporter/importer.
|