The General Equilibrium Effects of Large Universal Cash Transfers in Malawi

Last registered on September 08, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The General Equilibrium Effects of Large Universal Cash Transfers in Malawi
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015292
Initial registration date
September 03, 2025

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 08, 2025, 7:42 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Malawi
Region
Chiradzulu District

Primary Investigator

Name
Dennis Egger
Affiliation
Oxford University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
John Walker
PI Affiliation
University of Oxford
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PI Name
Winnie Mughogho
PI Affiliation
Queen Mary University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2025-02-01
End date
2035-12-31
Keywords
Agriculture, Behavior, Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Electoral, Finance & Microfinance, Firms & Productivity, Gender, Governance, Health, Labor, Welfare
Additional Keywords
universal cash transfers, general equilibrium effects, structural transformation, business grants, big push
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
This is the AEA Registry for the General Equilibrium Effects of Universal Cash Transfer program in Malawi. It is a three-stage cluster-randomized controlled trial of the NGO GiveDirectly's unconditional cash transfer program at scale. The transfers are universal (every adult in a village is eligible), unconditional, one-time, and lump-sum, amounting to approximately 550 USD or 70-100% of baseline annual consumption expenditure of recipients. Randomization is at the village, Group-Village-Headman (GVH), and Traditional Authority (TA) level, creating exogenous variation in transfer receipt, and geographic variation in the extent of transfers going into local economies. Together with original panel data collected on households, enterprises, local leaders, markets, and prices, and administrative data, this will enable us to study the direct, spillover, and general equilibrium effects of the cash across the study area. Phase I of the project covers all of Chiradzulu district (approximately 900 villages and a population of 400,000), where transfers will amount to approximately 70 - 100% of GDP in treated villages, and 40% of district-level GDP. The project and study may expand to additional districts in the future.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Egger, Dennis, Winnie Mughogho and John Walker. 2025. "The General Equilibrium Effects of Large Universal Cash Transfers in Malawi." AEA RCT Registry. September 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15292-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention are one-time lump-sum cash transfers. They are unconditional, universal (all adults are eligible), and delivered to individuals via mobile money in two tranches of 50 USD and 500 USD approximately one, and three months after enrolment. They amount to approximately 550 USD per individual, though this will vary somewhat with inflation and the exchange rate.

In addition to cash transfers, the project will test several complementary supply-side interventions, including information provision about upcoming transfers and demand increases to local businesses, as well as business grants to local enterprises.
Intervention Start Date
2025-03-01
Intervention End Date
2026-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
This project will study the direct, spillover, and general equilibrium effects of cash transfers on households, enterprises, local markets, prices. It will also test the impact of ex-ante information and business grants on business growth and price setting, and how this in turn affects the impacts of cash at the local economy level. We will also study the impacts of the program on local public goods, politics, and electoral outcomes in the 2025 election.

Analyses will be pre-specified in more detail in a series of pre-analyses plans to be filed on this page.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Randomization of cash transfers will be across 3 different geographic units (villages, GVHs, and TAs) in order to create variation in exposure to treatment not only at the village level, but also at higher geographic orders (including market catchment areas), allowing us to estimate treatment effect spillovers across larger geographies.

1. TA Saturation: Variation in the intensity of treatment across TAs generates variation in the geographic exposure to treatment of local economies. 80% of GVHs in high-saturation TAs will be treated, 40% in low-saturation TAs.

2. GVH Saturation: Within treated GVHs, approximately ⅔ of villages will be treated. Retaining control villages in treated GVHs allows us to estimate within GVH spillovers. In control GVHs, no villages will be treated, acting as pure controls.

3. Village-level treatment: Within treated villages, treatment is universal and at the individual level, i.e. every adult will be eligible to receive treatment.

This three-stage randomisation design generates substantial spatial variation in treatment exposure at various different geographies, ranging from regions with almost no eligibles being treated to regions where almost everyone is treated. We will use this spatial variation to study the impacts of cash inflows on non-recipients, and local economies and market catchment areas in the aggregate.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
by computer
Randomization Unit
As noted above, there are 3 levels of randomization for cash transfers:
- TAs: high (80%) vs. low (40%) saturation
- GVHs: treat (2/3 of villages treated) vs. control (no villages treated)
- villages: treat (all eligible individuals treated) vs. control (no-one treated)
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
- approx. 900 villages in Chiradzulu
- approx. 110 GVHs in Chiradzulu
- 10 TAs in Chiradzulu
Sample size: planned number of observations
Approximately 130,000 individuals will receive transfers. Approximately 1,000 businesses will receive information only, and approximately 2,000 businesses will receive information + business grants.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Households: We will sample approximately 12 households per village, or 11,000 households across the district. Household will be surveyed at baseline, midline (0 - 9 months after transfers), Endline 1 (9 - 24 months after transfers), and beyond.

Enterprises:

a) at markets: We will sample approximately 7,000 enterprises operating at all 77 weekly market centers within the district, including approximately 1,000 receiving information provision only, and approximately 2,250 receiving grant + information. These businesses will be surveyed at least 3-4 times within the first year, and approximately every 6 months thereafter.

b) in villages: We will survey homestead-based enterprises as part of the household surveys, expecting approximately 2 - 3,000 enterprises. Additionally, we will survey 2 - 4 enterprises in villages, but outside homesteads in each village, for a total of approximately 3,000 enterprises.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Oxford University
IRB Approval Date
2025-01-24
IRB Approval Number
DREC 1107211
IRB Name
NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
IRB Approval Date
2025-04-23
IRB Approval Number
P.01/25/951
Analysis Plan