Social Incentives of Non-Elected Leaders in Village Economics

Last registered on October 01, 2024

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Social Incentives of Non-Elected Leaders in Village Economics

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0014292

Initial registration date

September 12, 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

September 17, 2024, 11:59 AM EDT

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

Last updated

October 01, 2024, 2:29 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

Malawi

Region

Lilongwe

Primary Investigator

Name

Minji Kwak

Affiliation

University of Southern California

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2024-09-09

End date

2024-11-01

Keywords

Behavior, Gender, Governance

Additional Keywords

Political Economy, Chiefs, Subsidies, Malawi

JEL code(s)

D73, I38, O12, O22, O43

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

This document outlines a lab-in-the-field randomized controlled trial (RCT) in rural Malawi, which explores the disparity between the beliefs of villagers and traditional chiefs regarding social subsidy allocation, where hereditary leadership lacks monetary incentives and electoral accountability. The trial also examines the social incentives of traditional chiefs concerning subsidy allocation and the impact of involving villagers and higher-level chiefs as community monitors on policy outcomes (fairness and efficiency) and citizen satisfaction. Specifically, this experiment includes two distinct parts. First, villagers and village chiefs are asked to rank 15 randomly chosen villager profiles in terms of who should receive the social subsidy the most and the least. This project compares the beliefs of village chiefs with those of villagers, as well as with the Proxy Means Test (PMT) score. Following this ranking exercise, the first intervention takes place in the second part: the chiefs are asked to rank another set of 15 randomly chosen villager profiles, with the knowledge that their final rankings will be publicly announced to the villagers through public postings. The second intervention involves informing the chiefs that their final allocation decisions will be shared with their superiors (higher-ranked village chiefs). By comparing the rankings of village chiefs from the first and second parts, this project explores ways to improve the accountability of traditional chiefs.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Kwak, Minji. 2024. "Social Incentives of Non-Elected Leaders in Village Economics." AEA RCT Registry. October 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14292-2.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Household head profiles have been randomly assigned to one control group and two treatment groups. Randomly selected villagers in each village, along with the GVH, rank household profiles in each treatment group based on their own thoughts about who should receive the social subsidy. Meanwhile, the VH also ranks the household head profiles, but with different instructions. For the profiles in the control group, the VH ranks them based on their own thoughts, just like the villagers and the GVH. However, for the household head profiles in treatment group 1, there is an additional instruction that the VH's rankings will be shared with the villagers through public postings. Finally, the profiles in treatment group 2 come with the instruction that the VH's rankings will be shared with their superiors, the GVH.

Intervention Start Date

2024-09-09

Intervention End Date

2024-11-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

1. Correlation between the rankings from villagers and traditional chiefs with the ranking calculated using the PMT.
2. Rank of profile in each treatment group
3. Correlation between the VH's rank and the PMT-calculated rank, the correlation between the VH's rank and the villagers' rank, and the correlation between the VH's rank and the GVH's rank.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

As outlined in the overview, there are two main sets of outcomes of interest. The first set compares the beliefs of villagers, VH, and GVH with the PMT score, which is an objective measure. The outcome variable is the correlation between the rankings from villagers and traditional chiefs with the ranking calculated using the PMT.
To understand how these rankings differ from the PMT ranking, this project also examines the individual ranking of each household head profile by villagers and village chiefs as a mechanism.

In the second part, this project explores ways to improve the accountability of the lowest-level village chiefs through community monitoring. The outcomes of interest include the correlation between the VH's rank and the PMT-calculated rank, the correlation between the VH's rank and the villagers' rank, and the correlation between the VH's rank and the GVH's rank. It examines how each correlation differs depending on the treatments.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

This experiment includes two distinct parts. First, villagers and village chiefs are asked to rank randomly chosen villager profiles in terms of who should receive the social subsidy the most and the least.
Following this ranking exercise, the first intervention takes place in the second part: the chiefs are asked to rank another set of randomly chosen villager profiles, with the knowledge that their final rankings will be publicly announced to the villagers through public postings. The second intervention involves informing the chiefs that their final allocation decisions will be shared with their superiors (higher-ranked village chiefs).

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

Profiles are randomized in an individual level.

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

20 groups villages, each containing 10 villages, with a total of 1,000 villagers, 200 Village Headman (VH), and 20 Group Village Headman (GVH).

Sample size: planned number of observations

1220 individuals, 3660 sets, and 54900 profiles

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

15 profiles in control group, 15 profiles in treatment 1 group (sharing with villagers), and 15 profiles in treatment 2 group (sharing with superiors)

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB