Illegal activity's response to revealing its existence

Last registered on January 25, 2022

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Illegal activity's response to revealing its existence

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0002397

Initial registration date

September 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

September 06, 2017, 1:55 PM EDT

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

Last updated

January 25, 2022, 11:41 AM EST

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

Locations

Country

Colombia

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Santiago Saavedra

Affiliation

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2017-08-29

End date

2023-06-20

Keywords

Governance

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Illegal activity is widespread around the world. Local authorities probably observe illegal
activity with a large footprint, but decide not report to the National government. To overcome the
challenge of measuring illegal mining, we constructed a novel dataset using machine learning
predictions on satellite imagery features. In this research proposal we outline how we plan to
disclose this information to the authorities to address three research questions: Does revealing
the existence of illegal activity reduces the extent of the activity?; Does the agent informed
matters for the effect?; Does illegal activity relocate to neighboring municipalities not treated?

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Saavedra, Santiago. 2022. "Illegal activity's response to revealing its existence." AEA RCT Registry. January 25. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2397-1.2000000000000002

Former Citation

Saavedra, Santiago. 2022. "Illegal activity's response to revealing its existence." AEA RCT Registry. January 25. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2397/history/110460

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The proposed intervention is a 2x2 Randomized Control Trial revealing the predicted location of mines to the local and national Government.

Intervention Start Date

2017-08-29

Intervention End Date

2021-10-29

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Percentage of area illegally mined

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

We plan to monitor the evolution of illegal mining using satellite imagery. The methodology is described in Saavedra-Romero (2017)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The proposed intervention is a 2x2 Randomized Control Trial revealing the predicted location of mines to the local and national Government.

Experimental Design Details

In half of the municipalities we will inform local authorities of the location of mines in their municipality. For another random half of the municipalities we will inform the Air Force of the location of mines in those municipalities. For all parties, we will have a questionnaire asking whether they confirmed the presence of mining activity.

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office with Stata

Randomization Unit

State level ("Departamento")

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

32 states

Sample size: planned number of observations

There are 927 municipalities with mining potential

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

200 municipalities where BOTH the National and local governments are informed of the location of mines
200 municipalities where ONLY local governments are informed of the location of mines
200 municipalities where ONLY the national government is informed of the location of mines
327 municipalities control

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

The Minimum Detectable Effect is 2.21 percentage points. The mean of the fraction of mined area mined illegally in 2014 was 83.47 ppts (23.61 standard deviation).

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB