RCTs and Belief Distortion

Last registered on February 11, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
RCTs and Belief Distortion
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013923
Initial registration date
July 01, 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
July 08, 2024, 12:39 PM EDT

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

Last updated
February 11, 2025, 4:25 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
Florencia Hnilo
Affiliation
Stanford University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-09-01
End date
2025-12-15
Keywords
Agriculture, Behavior, Other
Additional Keywords
Spillovers, motivated reasoning, RCTs, awareness
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
I test a theory of spillover formation based on behavioral biases related to the interpretation of RCTs awareness and assignment methods.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hnilo, Florencia. 2025. "RCTs and Belief Distortion." AEA RCT Registry. February 11. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13923-1.1
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2024-10-01
Intervention End Date
2025-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Demand for information (willingness to pay, contact for extension services' programs, contact for government programs), changes in links (networks), ability perceptions, trust, crop yields, technology adoption, agricultural knowledge, locus of control, life satisfaction, religiosity, confidence, productivity, income, attrition
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
I will provide free access to a soil quality test similar to the Soil Health Card for the treatment group within a village. The variation is between villages: I will randomize villages into 1) ambiguous treatment assignment vs visual treatment assignment; 2) high percentage of eligible population into treatment group vs low percentage of eligible population into treatment group; 3) pure control arm: villages where no farmer will be targeted; 4) pure treatment arm: villages where all the farmers are targeted.

If resources allow: 5) intervention introduced by local organization vs outsider organization;
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Between villages, randomization will be done in the office by a computer (Stata), making sure villages that are less than 5km away from each other are clustered inside the same treatment arm; within villages, randomization will be done by a lottery (visual vs non-visual). The visual lottery consists of removing balls from a bag.
Randomization Unit
First level of randomization: village; second level of randomization: individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
120 villages
Sample size: planned number of observations
4,000 farmers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
35 villages into visual treatment assignment, 35 villages into non-visual treatment assignment
25 villages pure control
25 villages pure treatment
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 Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2024-05-03
IRB Approval Number
66074
IRB Name
IFMR
IRB Approval Date
2024-07-08
IRB Approval Number
IRB00007107
Analysis Plan