| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Trial Status | Before in_development | After completed |
| Field Last Published | Before July 21, 2017 05:25 PM | After April 27, 2018 01:57 PM |
| Field Study Withdrawn | Before | After No |
| Field Intervention Completion Date | Before | After August 27, 2017 |
| Field Data Collection Complete | Before | After Yes |
| Field Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) | Before | After 600 clusters. |
| Field Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations | Before | After 296,121 Facenook suers nested in 600 clusters |
| Field Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms | Before | After 200 Clusters per arm |
| Field Data Collection Completion Date | Before | After August 27, 2017 |
| Field Is data available for public use? | Before | After No |
| Field | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Field Paper Abstract | Before | After In this article we introduce and showcase how social media can be used to implement experiments in public administration research. To do so, we pre-registered a placebo-controlled field experiment and implemented it on the social media platform Facebook. The purpose of the experiment was to examine whether government funding to nonprofit organizations has an effect on charitable donations. Theories on the interaction between government funding and charitable donations stipulate that government funding of nonprofit organizations either decreases (crowding-out), or increases (crowding-in) private donations. To test these competing theoretical predictions, we used Facebook’s advertisement facilities and implemented an online field experiment among 296,121 Facebook users nested in 600 clusters. Through the process of cluster-randomization, groups of Facebook users were randomly assigned to different nonprofit donation solicitation ads, experimentally manipulating information cues of nonprofit funding. Contrary to theoretical predictions, we find that government funding does not seem to matter; providing information about government support to nonprofit organizations does neither increase nor decreases people’s propensity to donate. We discuss the implications of our empirical application, as well as the merits of using social media to conduct experiments in public administration more generally. Finally, we outline a research agenda of how social media can be used to implement public administration experiments. |
| Field Paper URL | Before | After https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3164576 |