Advance Payments and Seasonal Migration

Last registered on September 26, 2025
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Advance Payments and Seasonal Migration
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0016828
Initial registration date
September 22, 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 26, 2025, 8:17 AM EDT

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

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Name
Menna Bishop
Affiliation
University of Warwick
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2025-09-14
End date
2026-06-01
Keywords
Labor
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This project studies the demand-side of labour contracts offering payment in advance for seasonal migrant workers. This will be achieved through an experiment in partnership with real firms in India's brick kiln industry, who pay workers a large share of their earnings upon recruitment, prior to the start of the work period. We will advertise vacancies at kilns randomly chosen contracts and collect an incentivised measure of workers' interest in applying. Whilst some workers will be advertised the status quo high advance offer, others will be advertised a contract offering a lower advance but higher piece rate at the kiln. This design will allow us to causally identify the effect of advance payments on worker interest in the vacancy. Advances provide households with a borrowing opportunity with no spending conditions attached, and we will explore whether this makes advances particularly attractive to credit constrained households and those subject to negative economic shocks. These mechanisms will be tested against other potential drivers of demand for advances, including present bias.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bishop, Menna. 2025. "Advance Payments and Seasonal Migration." AEA RCT Registry. September 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.16828-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
This study experimentally varies the contractual terms of job offers for seasonal migrant work in India's brick kiln industry. We will advertise real vacancies at partner brick kilns to households in rural Odisha. A key feature of these jobs is the "advance," a large share of a worker's earnings paid upfront before the work period begins. The intervention will randomly assign households to receive one of three types of contract offers:
1. A "High Advance" contract, reflecting the status quo in the industry.
2. A "Low Advance" contract, which offers a smaller upfront payment but compensates workers with a higher piece rate during the work season.
3. A "Choice" contract, where workers are presented with both a high advance/low piece rate option and a low advance/higher piece rate option and asked to choose their preferred contract.
The objective is to measure how the structure of payment, specifically the size of the advance, affects workers' interest in applying for these jobs.
Intervention Start Date
2025-09-14
Intervention End Date
2025-10-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary outcomes are two incentivised measures of worker interest in the advertised job vacancy:
Expressed interest: A binary indicator equal to one if the respondent asks to be added to the list of applicants for the job.
Successful registration: A binary indicator equal to one if the respondent is interested and successfully completes the full registration procedure.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Expressed interest is captured immediately after the job description is provided to the respondent.
Successful registration is a more stringent measure of interest. It is a binary variable equal to one only if the respondent first expresses interest and then provides affirmative answers to a series of four follow-up questions designed to confirm their understanding of and eligibility for the job. These questions are:
(i) Ability to form a three-worker group (standard for brick production).
(ii) No prior work commitment for the upcoming season.
(iii) Willingness to migrate to the job location (Hyderabad).
(iv) Consent to share their contact details with the employer.
These questions impose a small cost to applying, helping to screen out individuals who are not genuinely interested.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Our main secondary outcome tests for time-inconsistent preferences:
Preference Reversal to High Advance: A binary indicator for households in the "Choice" arm who initially do not select the high advance contract but switch their preference to the high advance contract when asked again closer to the payment date.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Preference Reversal to High Advance is constructed using data from two survey waves for the "Choice" treatment arm. It is a binary variable equal to 1 if a household chose the low advance option or no contract at the baseline survey, but then chose the high advance option in the follow-up survey conducted a few days before the employer meeting. This analysis will exclude households who report experiencing an economic shock between the two survey waves.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study uses a three-arm randomized controlled trial to test how advance payments affect job take-up. Households in 68 villages in Odisha, India, will be surveyed. In 50 of these villages, households will be randomly assigned to receive one of two job offers: a "High Advance" offer or a "Low Advance" offer. In the remaining 18 villages, all surveyed households will be assigned to a "Choice" arm, where they can choose between a high-advance and a low-advance contract. The primary analysis will compare application rates between the High and Low Advance arms. The Choice arm will be used to analyse preference reversals.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization will be performed by a computer using a pre-generated random assignment list.
Randomization Unit
There are two levels of randomization:
1. Village-level: 18 villages are randomly assigned to the "Choice" treatment arm.
2. Household-level: Within the other 50 villages, households are randomly assigned to either the "High Advance" or "Low Advance" treatment arm.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
68 villages
Sample size: planned number of observations
1360 households
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
High advance: 500 households (in 50 villages)
Low advance: 500 households (in 50 villages)
Choice: 360 households (in 18 villages)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
For our primary hypothesis comparing the "High Advance" and "Low Advance" arms (N=1000), we calculate the minimum detectable effect size (MDE) for the main outcome of job interest. Assuming a baseline interest rate of 20% in the Low Advance arm, a significance level of 5%, and 80% power, the MDE is 7.5 percentage points. This calculation accounts for clustering at the village level, assuming an intra-cluster correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.1. For a binary outcome with this proportion (p=0.20), the implied standard deviation is sqrt(p*(1-p)) = sqrt(0.20*0.80) = 0.4.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Warwick Humanities & Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee (HSSREC)
IRB Approval Date
2025-07-10
IRB Approval Number
223/24-25
Analysis Plan

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information