Politician Charity and Corruption in Kenya

Last registered on August 24, 2018

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Politician Charity and Corruption in Kenya
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002375
Initial registration date
August 05, 2017

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 07, 2017, 9:58 AM EDT

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

Last updated
August 24, 2018, 4:41 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
MIT GOV/LAB

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2017-07-12
End date
2017-08-05
Secondary IDs
Abstract
My research considers how incumbent politicians are viewed by the community as playing a critical role in providing cash to the citizens for expenses that they cannot afford and in contributing to local public goods initiatives. It suggests that although voters dislike corruption and value public goods provision, voters also tend evaluate candidate performance on the basis of observed cash transfers to individuals and to the community. This study has a series of survey, list, and behavioral experiments to test the efficacy of different campaign promises, the extent to which politician charity and corruption impacts voter evaluations of candidates, how poverty can increase voter expectations of cash, and how pessimism about corruption can undermine citizen valuations of public goods.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Zhang, Kelly. 2018. "Politician Charity and Corruption in Kenya." AEA RCT Registry. August 24. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2375-2.0
Former Citation
Zhang, Kelly. 2018. "Politician Charity and Corruption in Kenya." AEA RCT Registry. August 24. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2375/history/33465
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
This study uses vignette, list, and behavioral experiments embedded within a survey.
Intervention Start Date
2017-07-12
Intervention End Date
2017-08-05

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Voter support for a candidate, count of campaign promises that are important, expected cash assistance by politicians, expected fundraiser contributions by politicians, expected corruption, and participant donations to local hospital.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This study uses vignette, list, and behavioral experiments embedded within a survey.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done within SurveyCTO.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
450
Sample size: planned number of observations
450
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
225 for treatment arm, 225 for control arm.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Power is calculated to capture a drop in voter support for a candidate from 49% to 29%, assuming the standard deviation of the control group 0.50, with α = 0.05 and β = 0.80 for a two-sided t-test. The sample is also large enough to detect a difference of 23,885.71 for MP harambee contributions (assuming the standard deviation of the sample at 86,463.09 with α = 0.05 and β = 0.80 for a two-sided t-test) and a difference of 118,632.14 for expected assistance from an MP (assuming the standard deviation of the sample at 302,032.89 with α = 0.05 and β = 0.80 for a two-sided t-test).
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Study has received IRB approval. Details not available.
IRB Approval Date
Details not available
IRB Approval Number
Details not available
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials