The effect of the next Trump administration change on callbacks for H1B workers in exempt vs. non-exempt firms

Last registered on August 27, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The effect of the next Trump administration change on callbacks for H1B workers in exempt vs. non-exempt firms
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019379
Initial registration date
August 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
August 27, 2026, 12:19 PM 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
Joanna Lahey
Affiliation
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Vitor Melo
PI Affiliation
Archbridge Institute
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Tim Cejka
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-08-24
End date
2027-10-30
Keywords
Labor
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
J23 J15 J58 J61 J68
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This study is paired with previous AEA pre-registration in which we compare the effects of being in the H1-B Visa lottery between immigrants with different Visa holdings and citizens from the same ethnicity. In the event of some federal immigration changes that would make the exemption from the H1-B Visa lottery irrelevant, then we would switch to this pre-registration plan.

The main difference between this pre-registration plan and the previous one is that we would add another Difference-in-Difference component that is before and after the federal immigration change (previous: comparing Visa vs. not Visa and H1B lottery exempt vs not H1B lottery exempt). All other elements will remain the same, though depending on how the pre-period results end up, we may limit to only a subset of our stimuli in the post-period (ex. if we are underpowered for one of our target positions or ethnicities we may choose to no longer apply to those positions).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Cejka, Tim, Joanna Lahey and Vitor Melo. 2026. "The effect of the next Trump administration change on callbacks for H1B workers in exempt vs. non-exempt firms." AEA RCT Registry. August 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19379-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We compare the effects of being in the H1-B Visa lottery between immigrants with different Visa holdings and citizens from the same ethnicity. In the event of some federal immigration changes we will study the effect of these changes in a correspondence audit study on hiring for common hospital positions such as data science, nursing, and physical therapy. We will have a triple difference design in which we look before and after the federal immigration change; compare Visa vs. not Visa holders; and H1B lottery exempt vs not H1B lottery exempt hospitals.
Intervention Start Date
2026-10-31
Intervention End Date
2027-10-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Call-backs and positive callbacks.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Positive callbacks will be a subset of callbacks that indicate some positivity (ex. interview request) rather than notification that the application was received.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
response quality (substantive interview-request vs. boilerplate auto-reply, coded by LLM-assisted classification with human validation on a 10% audit sample); response latency; explicit mention of visa-sponsorship questions in the response text.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We compare the effects of being in the H1-B Visa lottery between immigrants with different Visa holdings and citizens from the same ethnicity. In the event of some federal immigration changes we will study the effect of these changes in a correspondence audit study on hiring for common hospital positions such as data science, nursing, and physical therapy. We will have a triple difference design in which we look before and after the federal immigration change; compare Visa vs. not Visa holders; and H1B lottery exempt vs not H1B lottery exempt hospitals.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by computer
Randomization Unit
Hospital
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Up to 491 hospitals (depending on how many are hiring) for treatment group, up to 4,861 (but closer to 491) in the post-period.
Sample size: planned number of observations
15000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Will depend on how many positions are available. We intend to apply to all open positions.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of California at Berkeley
IRB Approval Date
2026-03-18
IRB Approval Number
2026-01-19298
Analysis Plan