Responsiveness to Information on Environmental Risk

Last registered on August 28, 2024

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Responsiveness to Information on Environmental Risk

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0014166

Initial registration date

August 18, 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

August 28, 2024, 2:31 PM EDT

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

Mira Korb

Affiliation

UC Davis

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2024-08-23

End date

2024-11-30

Keywords

Education, Environment & Energy, Governance

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Existing work has documented that interventions lead by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tend to be more effective
than those lead by other actors, such as government agencies (Vivalt, 2020). Various observed and unobserved implementer-specific factors, such as implementer location, organizational capacity and beneficiaries’ prior experiences with the implementer, can influence the success of the implementer’s intervention. I define an “implementer” as the organization, institution or group involved in planning and executing an intervention. Many public health interventions in developing countries involve sharing information about health risks to encourage people to adopt protective or collective action behaviors. Whether communities adopt these protective behaviors could be affected by whether participants trust the implementer, which in turn may be influenced by prior experiences with the implementer. In this paper, my primary aim is to examine how making the identity of the implementer salient affects the extent to which people update their beliefs towards the provided information. In addition, I explore how belief formation in response to pre-existing perceptions and the information provision can affect willingness to participate in a future intervention. I study these questions in the context of providing information on water pollution to mining communities in Ghana.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Korb, Mira. 2024. "Responsiveness to Information on Environmental Risk." AEA RCT Registry. August 28. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14166-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

In my intervention, I provide participants with two measures of water quality for their community borehole: a water quality index that summarizes physiochemical indicators (e.g. heavy metals, pH, turbidity, nitrates, sulfates) and the E-coli count, which summarizes microbiological indicators of water quality. I refer to the physiochemical water quality index as "chemical pollution" and the E-coli count as "bacteria pollution" for simplicity. These water quality measures come from tests of samples of the community's borehole, where the sampling was conducted jointly by researchers at the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a local NGO, the Centre for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS). During the provision of the test results, I experimentally vary the salience of the implementer of the sampling, holding constant the test result. In one treatment arm, respondents are told that the sampling was conducted by researchers from the EPA, a government agency that works to address issues of environmental quality, while in the other treatment arm, respondents are told that the sampling was conducted by researchers from CeSIS, an NGO that works on environmental advocacy. I identify treatment effects on measures of belief updating about pollution levels.

Intervention Start Date

2024-08-23

Intervention End Date

2024-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

1. Belief updating about chemical pollution levels in water
2. Belief updating about bacteria pollution levels in water

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

1. Belief updating about chemical pollution levels in water
The outcome is defined as the difference between the participant’s posterior and prior guess for the chemical pollution index of their own community’s drinking water. In both the pre-information and post-information survey sections, I ask respondents to make an incentivized guess for the level of chemical pollution in their own community’s borehole. During information dissemination, I
make the experimentally assigned implementer salient by reminding them that the water sampling was conducted by said implementer. Participants receive GHC 10 if their guess falls within 5% of the actual index value, 5 if within 10% and 2 if within 20%.

2. Belief updating about bacteria pollution levels in water
The outcome is defined as the difference between the participant’s posterior and prior guess for the bacteria pollution of their own community’s drinking water. In both the pre-information (prior) and post-information survey (posterior) sections, I ask respondents to make an incentivized guess for the level of bacteria in their own community’s borehole. During information dissemination, I
make the experimentally assigned implementer salient by reminding them that the water sampling was conducted by said implementer. Participants receive GHC 10 if their guess falls within 5% of the actual E-coli count, 5 if within 10% and 2 if within 20%.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

All secondary outcomes are listed in the pre-analysis plan, which will be made publicly available at the end of my experiment.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

I study how community members update their beliefs about water pollution in response to information about pollution risk, specifically examining how this belief updating may differ depending on who participants perceive that the information is coming from. In addition, I study the extent to which information can improve perceptions of or change preferences for the implementer of an intervention, as well as influence future interest in engagement with the implementer. I share two measures of water quality that summarize the results of tests conducted on samples collected from community boreholes by researchers at the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a local NGO, CeSIS. I collect incentivized point beliefs for the levels of chemical and bacteria pollution in a community's borehole water, to understand how belief updating may be affected by making an implementer salient when the test results are shared. I also measure perceptions of accuracy of government and NGO sources, as well as the extent to which perceptions can be changed by the information provided. Finally, I examine whether the provided information can influence interest in engagement with the implementer as part of a future project.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization is stratified by community, on R using a computer, to ensure that there is balance between the government and NGO treatment arms within a community.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?