Understanding reporting behavior on gang extortion: A survey experiment in Medellín

Last registered on November 15, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Understanding reporting behavior on gang extortion: A survey experiment in Medellín
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014803
Initial registration date
November 11, 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
November 15, 2024, 1:46 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
Colombia
Region
Medellin

Primary Investigator

Name
Santiago Tobon
Affiliation
Universidad EAFIT
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Christopher Blattman
PI Affiliation
University of Chicago
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PI Name
Juan-Pablo Mesa-Mejia
PI Affiliation
Innovations for Poverty Action
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-09-28
End date
2024-12-31
Keywords
Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Governance, Post-conflict
Additional Keywords
Gangs, crime, organized crime, extortion, crime reporting, law enforcement, survey experiment, Colombia
JEL code(s)
E26, K42
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This experiment is part of a yearly survey conducted in Medellin asking its citizens questions about the governance, legitimacy, and taxation of three main actors: gangs, the municipal government, and the police. As part of the survey, we are interested in knowing how often and how much gangs extort (tax) households and businesses. We are unsure whether subjects would be willing to report extortion to the authorities. In addition to collecting self-reported willingness and actual responses to a WhatsApp inquiry, we conduct survey experiments where individuals are randomly assigned to one of the three treatment groups that might increase likelihood pf reporting: a video that increases the salience of the issue to the government (and their likelihood of acting on the information); a video that articulates the size and social cost of the problem; and a control group.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Blattman, Christopher, Juan-Pablo Mesa-Mejia and Santiago Tobon. 2024. "Understanding reporting behavior on gang extortion: A survey experiment in Medellín." AEA RCT Registry. November 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14803-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
This study aims to examine the willingness of individuals to exert costly effort in reporting extortion to the authorities. Participants are divided into three distinct groups—two treatment groups and one control group—to assess the impact of varying informational interventions on their reporting behavior.

Group assignments and treatment conditions:

Control group: Participants in the control group receive no informational intervention.

Treatment group 1: Participants in the first treatment group view a video featuring the Secretary of Security. In this video, the Secretary explicitly expresses concern about extortion, emphasizes the government's commitment to addressing it, and directly encourages citizens to report instances of extortion.

Treatment group 2: Participants in the second treatment group view a video presenting quantitative data on the economic scope of extortion in the area. This video details the estimated amount of money extorted weekly, monthly, and yearly by local gangs, thus illustrating the scale and economic impact of extortion.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-09-28
Intervention End Date
2024-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary outcome is an index that measures respondents’ willingness to take costly actions in reporting extortion.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The index consists of two components, capturing expressed willingness and potential action to report and are collected through a direct survey and WhatsApp follow-ups.

First, our survey directly collects one question on people’s willingness to report extortion to authorities. This question comes after the information provision. Second, we send a WhatsApp question measuring willingness to take a reporting action online. Positive answers for each question are coded as 1.

We average the two answers to build the index.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
We will analyze the subcomponents of the primary outcome as secondary outcomes. In addition, we will analyze answers to a survey question asking about willingness to stop paying the gang and a WhatsApp survey question asking whether the gang has collected extortion in the household or business (a measure of reporting to an external party). If available, we will analyze actual extortion reports (matched with respondents via exact coordinates).
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We expect our primary outcome regression to take the following form:

Y = b1 T1 + b2 T2 + b3 X + C + e

where
Y is our primary outcome
T1 is assignment to the first information treatment (commitment)
T2 is assignment to the second information treatment (fairness and magnitude)
X is a set of pre-information experiment control variables taken from survey data, selected using the double lasso method on primary outcomes
C is a set of comuna or barrio fixed effects
e is an error term (not clustered)
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization was done by the tablet of each surveyed individual
Randomization Unit
Survey respondent
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Roughly 8,000 survey respondents (treatment is not clustered)
Sample size: planned number of observations
Roughly 8,000 survey respondents
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
One-third of the entire sample size
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Social & Behavioral Sciences IRB at the University of Chicago
IRB Approval Date
2023-08-25
IRB Approval Number
IRB23-1096
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials