Transparency and support for EU: the case of OpenCoesione

Last registered on February 04, 2026

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Transparency and support for EU: the case of OpenCoesione

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0017790

Initial registration date

January 28, 2026

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

February 04, 2026, 9:41 AM EST

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

Lorenzo Cicatiello

Affiliation

University of Naples l'Orientale

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

PI Affiliation

PI Name

PI Affiliation

PI Name

PI Affiliation

PI Name

PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2026-01-28

End date

2026-02-28

Keywords

Governance, Other, Welfare

Additional Keywords

Public Economics, Regional Economics

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This study examines whether transparency about EU Cohesion Policy affects citizens’ support for the European Union and for EU regional development policies. We implement a randomized survey experiment in Italy in which respondents are assigned to one of three groups. The control group receives general information about the goals of EU Cohesion Policy. In the first treatment, respondents are exposed to an aggregate transparency interface showing EU-funded Cohesion Policy projects in their province. In the second treatment, respondents are exposed to transparency information about a single, concrete EU-funded Cohesion Policy project located in their province.
The experimental stimuli reproduce screenshots from the Italian public transparency platform OpenCoesione and are matched to respondents’ province of residence. The primary outcomes are post-treatment measures of support for EU Cohesion Policy and support for Italy’s contribution to the EU budget. Secondary outcomes include trust in institutions and related attitudinal measures.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Cicatiello, Lorenzo et al. 2026. "Transparency and support for EU: the case of OpenCoesione ." AEA RCT Registry. February 04. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17790-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Participants are randomly assigned to one of three groups. The control group receives a short informational text describing the objectives and general functioning of EU Cohesion Policy. Treatment 1 exposes participants to aggregate transparency information by showing a screenshot from the Italian public transparency platform OpenCoesione displaying EU-funded Cohesion Policy projects in the respondent’s province. Treatment 2 exposes participants to project-level transparency information by showing a screenshot from OpenCoesione focused on one specific EU-funded Cohesion Policy project located in the respondent’s province. The screenshots include information on financial allocations and implementation status.

Intervention Start Date

2026-01-28

Intervention End Date

2026-02-28

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Support for EU Cohesion Policy as a tool for the economic and social development of the respondent’s province.
Support for Italy’s contribution to the EU budget that finances Cohesion Policy.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

The primary outcomes capture respondents’ overall support for EU Cohesion Policy and for the financial contribution required to sustain it. These outcomes are directly related to the central research question of whether transparency about EU-funded projects increases public support for EU policies and are measured immediately after exposure to the experimental intervention using Likert-type scales.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Support for reallocating public resources toward EU Cohesion Policy.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary outcomes are used to explore broader attitudinal effects of transparency and potential mechanisms underlying the treatment effects. In particular, measures of perceived clarity and relevance of the information allow us to assess whether differences in support for EU Cohesion Policy are mediated by how understandable and salient the information is perceived to be. These outcomes are considered exploratory and are not used to evaluate the main hypotheses of the study.

Experimental Design

The study is a between-subjects randomized survey experiment with three experimental arms. Respondents are randomly assigned with equal probability (1:1:1) to a control group or to one of two treatment groups. The control group receives general information about EU Cohesion Policy. Treatment 1 receives aggregate transparency information on EU-funded Cohesion Policy projects in the respondent’s province. Treatment 2 receives project-level transparency information on a single EU-funded Cohesion Policy project located in the respondent’s province. The primary estimands are pairwise average treatment effects comparing each treatment group to the control group and comparing the two treatment groups to each other.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization is implemented at the individual respondent level by the survey platform using a built-in simple random assignment procedure. Respondents are assigned with equal probability (1:1:1) to the control group or to one of the two treatment groups. Random assignment is independent across respondents and does not vary by province or other respondent characteristics. The randomization procedure and assignment probabilities are fixed ex ante and remain unchanged throughout data collection.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Sample size: planned number of observations

4,230

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

1,410

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

With a total sample of 4,230 respondents randomly assigned to three experimental arms (1,410 per group), the study has 80% power to detect a minimum effect sizes (treatment vs. control) of approximately 0.1 if treating the outcome as continuous and 0.05 if treating the outcome as binary (e.g. support or strong support VS. no support).

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name

IRB Approval Date

IRB Approval Number

Analysis Plan