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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Marginal Utility of Expenditure (MUE), subjective well-being, willingness to accept (WTA)
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After
1. Indicator for wishing they could change their previous schedule, if they could change their past choices (“Thinking back to when you first chose your payment schedule, if you could go back and make the decision again, would you choose the same schedule?”)
2. Total annual value of total household consumption over the past 30 days
- We sum this across all of the monthly phone surveys and the endline survey
2A. We will repeat 2. for food and non-food consumption
3. Total annual (foods) welfare based on Ligon (2024) Marginal Utility of Expenditure method
- MUE weights were computed based on external data from the Ghana Living Standards Suvey prior to the baseline
- We apply these weights to 7-day consumption data for a consistent set of outcome variables for each month to get an estimate of welfare for the month
- We multiply each monthly measure by W = D / 7, where D is the number of days in the month for the phone survey and so W is the number of weeks in that month. We then sum the monthly measures to get an annual total.
4. Annual average subjective well-being
- This will be an index based on two questions: life satisfaction (I'm satisfied with life, all else equal) and depression (In the past four weeks, about how often did you feel so sad that nothing could cheer you up?), measured as 5-point Likert scales
- We will reverse-code the latter outcome
- We will then standardize each with respect to the control group at endline and average the two standardized scores.
- If a respondent has answers for only one of the two scores we will use that standardized score for them, instead of leaving their outcome missing
- With only two outcomes, this approach is equivalent to an Anderson (2008) index, which maximizes statistical power (Wydick 2026)
- We will average this over the calendar year, based on all the monthly phone surveys and the endline survey
5. WTA for preferred timing of a second round of cash transfers in round 2/endline.
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
First, we will randomize 800 (of 1,500) households into a control group (C) and 700 to a treatment group will receive cash transfers (T). During the baseline, we will elicit beneficiary preferences over preferred times and amounts of cash transfers and measure respondents' willingness to accept (WTA) switching to the LEAP default timing instead (equal, bi-monthly transfers) using a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism. The BDM mechanism will determine whether a household belongs to one of two treatment groups with the following distribution programs (equal in total value): (T1) smooth, bi-monthly transfers (LEAP default) vs. (T2) fully-flexible payment schedule that provides choice over the timing of transfers. Respondents will state their maximum WTA to switch away from their preferred schedule, and a spinning wheel will provide a random amount of money between 0-690 GHC. If the respondent's WTA is lower than the amount spun, they will receive their preferred timing schedule, otherwise, they will switch to the LEAP default schedule.
We will collect data using a comprehensive baseline survey prior to the cash transfers, a comprehensive endline survey once the cash transfers are complete, and a set of high-frequency phone surveys while the cash transfers are ongoing. The phone surveys are very brief and will track the following outcomes: poverty scorecard, consumption expenditures (food, utilities, personal care, education, healthcare, durables, total), subjective well-being, and inflation perceptions.
Impacts will be assessed on subjective well-being, consumption expenditures (we will use this to derive marginal utility of expenditures (MUEs) following Ligon (2020) and the treatment’s welfare effects), income, assets, savings and debt, women’s empowerment, and mental health. We will further explore whether liquidity or risk drive these impacts by stratifying treatments on village “financial health” (low, medium, high) (Innovations for Poverty Action IPA 2020).
After evaluating the main effects at endline by comparing the control vs treatment groups and the two treatments to one another (the lump-sum and fully-flexible programs), we plan to later implement a mechanism experiment to causally test whether the main effects are explained by either commitment and self-control motives or consumption self-insurance motives. All households will receive cash transfers. Households will be randomized into a control group receiving no additional programming, a group that will additionally receive an insurance product, a group that will additionally receive a a savings product, and a group that will additionally receive both insurance and savings products. The outcomes will be the same as the main experiment.
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After
First, we will randomize 800 (of 1,500) households into a control group (C) and 700 to a treatment group will receive cash transfers (T). During the baseline, we will elicit beneficiary preferences over preferred times and amounts of cash transfers and measure respondents' willingness to accept (WTA) switching to the LEAP default timing instead (equal, bi-monthly transfers) using a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism. The BDM mechanism will determine whether a household belongs to one of two treatment groups with the following distribution programs (equal in total value): (T1) smooth, bi-monthly transfers (LEAP default) vs. (T2) fully-flexible payment schedule that provides choice over the timing of transfers. Respondents will state their maximum WTA to switch away from their preferred schedule, and a spinning wheel will provide a random amount of money between 0-690 GHC. If the respondent's WTA is lower than the amount spun, they will receive their preferred timing schedule, otherwise, they will switch to the LEAP default schedule.
We will collect data using a comprehensive baseline survey prior to the cash transfers, a comprehensive endline survey once the cash transfers are complete, and a set of high-frequency phone surveys while the cash transfers are ongoing. The phone surveys are very brief and will track the following outcomes: poverty scorecard, consumption expenditures (food, utilities, personal care, education, healthcare, durables, total), subjective well-being, and inflation perceptions.
Impacts will be assessed on subjective well-being, consumption expenditures (we will use this to derive marginal utility of expenditures (MUEs) following Ligon (2020) and the treatment’s welfare effects), income, assets, savings and debt, women’s empowerment, and mental health. We will further explore whether liquidity or risk drive these impacts by stratifying treatments on village “financial health” (low, medium, high) (Innovations for Poverty Action IPA 2020).
After evaluating the main effects at endline by comparing the LEAP default vs. fully-flexible timing, we plan to later implement a mechanism experiment to causally test whether the main effects are explained by either commitment and self-control motives or consumption self-insurance motives. All households will receive cash transfers. Households will be randomized into a control group receiving no additional programming, a group that will additionally receive an insurance product, a group that will additionally receive a a savings product, and a group that will additionally receive both insurance and savings products. The outcomes will be the same as the main experiment.
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Consumption, assets, savings, debt, depression, stress, anxiety, self-esteem, women's empowerment, risk-aversion, ambiguity-aversion, time preferences, cognition
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After
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