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Interventions, Autonomy, and Gender

Last registered on June 16, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Interventions, Autonomy, and Gender
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015804
Initial registration date
June 15, 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
June 16, 2025, 7:45 AM 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
Felix Kölle
Affiliation
University of Cologne
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Louis Strang
PI Affiliation
University of Cologne
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PI Name
Aenne Läufer
PI Affiliation
University of Cologne
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-06-20
End date
2026-12-31
Keywords
Behavior, Gender
Additional Keywords
Gender, experiment, autonomy, interventions
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The extent to which one should intervene in others’ choices is the subject of substantial debate, often informed by emotional, moral, and political considerations. This question has been at the center of longstanding normative discussions in economics, philosophy, and related disciplines, particularly concerning the tension between libertarian values and paternalistic interventions. Recently, a positive literature has emerged that investigates intervention behavior in experimental settings. These studies—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the normative disagreements—find substantial heterogeneity in individuals’ willingness to intervene in others’ decisions. In this study, we examine whether preferences for autonomy and the propensity to intervene vary systematically with the gender of the decision-maker and/or the target of the intervention.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Kölle, Felix, Aenne Läufer and Louis Strang. 2025. "Interventions, Autonomy, and Gender." AEA RCT Registry. June 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15804-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2025-06-20
Intervention End Date
2025-09-26

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
- Willingness to intervene in other’s choices
- Willingness to pay to lift interventions by others
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Building on experimental designs from prior literature, such as Ambuehl et al. (2021), we conduct an online experiment featuring two roles: a Decision Maker (DM) and a Choice Architect (CA). DMs make choices across three decision contexts: (i) a social decision (allocating money between themselves and a charity), (ii) a risky decision (choosing between a safe and a risky monetary option), and (iii) an intertemporal decision (money now versus later). CAs have the opportunity to intervene by restricting the DM’s choice set—that is, by removing one or more available options. DMs, in turn, may pay to override any such restrictions and preserve full autonomy over their decisions. The experiment employs a 2×2 between-subjects design in which we vary—and make salient—the gender of both the DM and the CA. To further investigate the underlying mechanisms driving behavior, we elicit (i) participants’ beliefs about the likely choices of their counterpart, and (ii) their motivations for intervening or opting to remove imposed restrictions.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done by a computer
Randomization Unit
Randomization is done at the individual level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2000 participants
Sample size: planned number of observations
2000 participants (see above, there are no clusters)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
250 participants per treatment and role
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethical Review Board of the Faculty of Management, Economics, and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne
IRB Approval Date
2024-05-06
IRB Approval Number
240025AL
Analysis Plan

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