People, Places, and Plots: Attachment Constraints on Climate Adaptation

Last registered on June 29, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
People, Places, and Plots: Attachment Constraints on Climate Adaptation
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0018966
Initial registration date
June 23, 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
June 29, 2026, 8:37 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Pakistan
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Talha Naeem
Affiliation
University of British Columbia
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Guglielmo Zappalà
PI Affiliation
Harvard University
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Patrick Baylis
PI Affiliation
University of British Columbia
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-06-27
End date
2027-01-31
Keywords
Agriculture, Behavior, Environment & Energy
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This study examines how attachment to social networks, home villages, and ancestral farmland constrains climate adaptation among smallholder farmers in Pakistan. We recruit 1,440 households across 120 villages stratified by flood exposure. Two crossed household-level randomized treatments are administered during face-to-face surveys: an information treatment providing historical flood frequency and projected climate change impacts, and an insurance framing treatment presenting the same index crop insurance product as income protection, adaptation-enabling, or attachment-preserving. We measure insurance demand through a discrete choice experiment and multiple price list. We measure attachment constraints on adaptation through a willingness-to-accept experiment in which respondents are presented with scenarios that independently vary where they would live, what their social network would be, and which land they would farm (if any). This design allows decomposition of the total welfare cost of displacement into place, network, and plot components.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Baylis, Patrick, Talha Naeem and Guglielmo Zappalà. 2026. "People, Places, and Plots: Attachment Constraints on Climate Adaptation." AEA RCT Registry. June 29. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18966-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Households are randomly assigned to two independent treatments. The first is a flood information treatment: treated households receive the number of flood events in their union council over the past 10 years and a climate projection for the next 10 years. Control households receive no information. The second is an insurance framing treatment: households are randomly assigned to one of three descriptions of an otherwise identical index insurance product. F1 (income protection) frames the insurance as protecting income in a bad harvest year. F2 (adaptation) frames it as enabling continued farming and long-term investment despite growing flood risk. F3 (attachment) frames it as helping farmers stay on their land and in their community even after a bad year. Under their assigned framing, all households complete a discrete choice experiment across 7 insurance contract pairs and a multiple price list for three spatial trigger levels (village, sub-district, district).
Intervention Start Date
2026-06-27
Intervention End Date
2026-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Insurance demand: willingness to pay for index crop insurance
2. Willingness to accept (WTA) compensation for displacement and land change
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
1. Flood risk beliefs and perceived basis risk.
2. Insurance product comprehension.
3. Adaptation intentions, past adaptation behaviors, and policy support
4. Place attachment
5. Plot attachment
6. Network attachment
7. Risk and time preferences.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This is a household-level randomized controlled trial conducted in 120 villages in Pakistan. The study sample totals 1,440 households (12 per village). Villages are stratified into three flood-exposure strata (low, medium, high), with 40 villages per stratum. Within each village, 12 households are randomly assigned to one of the six treatment cells formed by crossing the information treatment (2 levels) with the insurance framing treatment (3 arms). The main analysis estimates the effects of the information treatment and framing arms on insurance demand and WTA outcomes, including their interaction, with village fixed effects included in all specifications. Additionally, we test the role attachment plays in mediating the decision to insure, adapt, and relocate.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Household-level randomization within villages, stratified by flood exposure (three strata). Within each village, 12 households are assigned to the six cells. Randomization done in the office.
Randomization Unit
Household.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
120 villages (40 per flood exposure stratum).
Sample size: planned number of observations
1,440 households (12 per village).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
720 households receive the information treatment, 720 do not;
480 households per framing arm.
All 1,440 households are distributed across 120 villages, with approximately 2 households per cell per village.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Power calculations assume village fixed effects, 80% power, and a 5% significance level, using a within-village residual standard deviation of 282 PKR from a previous study (ICC = 0.38). With 1,440 households, we can detect framing main effects of 0.13 SD, information treatment main effects of 0.10 SD, and framing-by-information interaction effects of 0.25 SD.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University Committee on the Use of Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2026-02-04
IRB Approval Number
IRB26-0055
IRB Name
Behavioural Research Ethics Board, The University of British Columbia
IRB Approval Date
2026-06-19
IRB Approval Number
H26-01994
Analysis Plan

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