Property Rights, Fiscal Visibility, and the Citizen–State Relationship: Longer-Term Evidence from Quelimane, Mozambique

Last registered on September 28, 2026

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Property Rights, Fiscal Visibility, and the Citizen–State Relationship: Longer-Term Evidence from Quelimane, Mozambique

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0019778

Initial registration date

September 21, 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

September 28, 2026, 8:52 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

Wayne Sandholtz

Affiliation

Nova School of Business and Economics

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Marta Botelho

PI Affiliation

NOVASBE

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Pedro Vicente

PI Affiliation

NOVASBE

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2023-09-01

End date

2027-12-31

Keywords

Electoral, Finance & Microfinance, Governance, Welfare

Additional Keywords

Property rights, land titling, municipal taxation, property tax, tax compliance, fiscal reciprocity, political support, citizen–state relations, state capacity, public goods, investment

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.

Abstract

This study examines whether facilitated municipal titling produces durable changes in property investment, political support, collective action, and fiscal cooperation in Quelimane, Mozambique. The original experiment included 792 eligible properties in Bazar and Murropue, identified through mapping and a baseline survey. Eligible properties lacked qualifying formal documentation and were considered suitable for regularization. Within 192 matched strata based on geography and baseline housing quality, 397 properties were assigned to an offer of municipal documentation and assistance obtaining a Tombo, while 395 were assigned to control.
The longer-term follow-up combines a household survey, an incentivized public-goods game, political and institutional measures, and observation of whether households display a commonly offered municipal sticker. Direct and indirect questions measure reports of historical voting and savings.
Following the survey, planned municipal activities include tax-awareness sessions, assessment and bill delivery, and administrative tracking of property-tax payments. The intended protocol provides comparable information and payment opportunities across the original treatment and control groups. Assessment, liability, bill delivery, and collection activity will be documented to distinguish fiscal cooperation from changes in administrative access and tax obligations.
Primary analyses estimate intention-to-treat effects of the original assignment on four outcomes: property-tax payment, municipal-sticker display, public-goods contribution, and construction or expansion. Analysis will retain the original matched strata, address multiple testing and missing outcomes, and distinguish property-level effects from outcomes of current owners and original respondents. Findings from an immediate compliance survey, conducted shortly after the treatment, inform the hypotheses; access to new follow-up outcomes will be disclosed at registration.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Botelho, Marta, Wayne Sandholtz and Pedro Vicente. 2026. "Property Rights, Fiscal Visibility, and the Citizen–State Relationship: Longer-Term Evidence from Quelimane, Mozambique." AEA RCT Registry. September 28. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19778-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The randomized intervention offered eligible property holders assistance obtaining municipal property documentation. It combined a municipal despacho, facilitation of administrative requirements, and support for obtaining a free of charge Tombo (property right). Assignment to treatment constituted an offer of this package; actual receipt and the different administrative stages are recorded separately. Control properties did not receive the original experimental offer, although subsequent acquisition of documentation outside the programme is possible.
The follow-up retains this original randomized comparison. Planned activities comprise an independent survey, behavioural measurements, a standardized municipal-sticker offer followed by an observation visit, and subsequent municipal tax-awareness and billing activities.
The municipal protocol aims to provide comparable assessment attempts, information, bill-delivery procedures, payment access, and reminder intensity across the original assignment groups. Tax amounts may differ according to applicable valuation and exemption rules. Implementation differences will be documented.

Intervention Start Date

2023-12-01

Intervention End Date

2024-01-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Any verified payment of current-year municipal property-tax principal.
Observed exterior display of the offered municipal sticker.
Mayor-prime affect score.
Verified contribution to the public-goods game.
Verified attendance at a municipal tax-awareness session.
Reported construction or expansion at the original property during the preceding two years.
Property-tax payment.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Administrative assessment, liability, payment amounts, outstanding balances and payment timing; tax attitudes and perceived fiscal visibility; trust and satisfaction with municipal and national institutions; mayoral trust and party associations; direct reports of 2024 voting and political-list estimates; savings and direct-indirect reporting differences; civic engagement; property documentation ,use, disputes and transfers; repairs and construction expenditure; employment and productive activity; assets, income, category-specific expenditure, borrowing, collateral use, transfers, unmet needs and well-being.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

This is a longer-term follow-up of a two-arm randomized experiment involving 792 properties in Bazar and Murropue, Quelimane. Mapping and baseline data identified properties lacking qualifying formal documentation that could be regularized through the municipal programme. Original treatment allocation is retained; the titling treatment will not be rerandomized.

Properties were assigned within 192 matched strata constructed using geography and baseline housing quality. The allocation comprises 397 treatment and 395 control properties. All original properties will be targeted for follow-up, retaining assignment after sale, migration, demolition, subdivision or other ownership changes. Administrative and physical-property outcomes will be linked to the original plot through documented crosswalks.

Principal person-level outcomes use one designated current owner per original plot. Joint-owner selection follows a stable pre-interview rule. Original respondents, including movers where feasible, form a separately identified secondary panel. Current-owner estimates may include treatment-induced ownership composition changes and are not necessarily within-person effects on the original residents.

The main estimand is the intention-to-treat effect of original assignment. Each primary endpoint will be regressed on assignment, original stratum fixed effects and six baseline covariates: secondary-school completion, sex, literacy, age, residential property use and being born in Quelimane. All covariates come from the archived baseline; the endline field named female will not substitute for baseline sex. Missing baseline covariates receive pooled-mean imputation and accompanying missingness indicators. A stratum-only specification will also be reported.

Binary outcomes use linear probability models. One-observation-per-property analyses use HC2 heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors. Repeated observations will be aggregated to the endpoint or analysed with appropriate property-level clustering. A sensitivity will account for a shared owner representing multiple plots.

Actual title receipt, bill delivery, tax liability, construction and other post-treatment variables will not be controlled for in the primary total-effect regressions. Comparisons concern own assignment under the experiment's treatment saturation and subsequent common municipal programme; the study does not independently identify every spillover or the effect of titling an entire city.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

The original titling assignment unit is the individual property. List-experiment assignment is at respondent level. Person-level outcomes are linked to the original randomized property.

Was the treatment clustered?