Una valutazione sperimentale del 'certificato specialistico pediatrico' (An experimental evaluation of the 'Pediatric Specialist Certificate')

Last registered on September 28, 2018

Pre-Trial

General Information

Title

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0002433

Initial registration date

September 15, 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 18, 2017, 2:54 PM EDT

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

Last updated

September 28, 2018, 5:17 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Italy

Region

Europe

Primary Investigator

Name

Gilberto Turati

Affiliation

Catholic University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Tito Boeri

PI Affiliation

Bocconi University

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Gianpaolo Barbetta

PI Affiliation

Catholic University

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Gianluca Argentin

PI Affiliation

Catholic University

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2017-04-12

End date

2018-12-31

Keywords

Welfare

Additional Keywords

children with disabilities, cash transfers, take up rate

JEL code(s)

H53, I38

Secondary IDs

Abstract

The Italian Social Security Institute (INPS) has estimated that only one fourth of the one million children with disabilities living in Italy are receiving cash transfers specifically designed for them. As in other countries, in the absence of specific studies on this subject, one can speculate that the causes of the low take up rate are mainly related to the direct and indirect costs to families to obtain the transfer, which include a long, burdensome, path of medical visits to certify the disability. To cut these costs and try to increase the take up rate, INPS has recently signed a protocol with three of the largest pediatric hospitals in the country, which are able to supply care for a large range of disabilities. The goal of the agreement is to reduce the burden to households by allowing hospital medical staff to use the “Pediatric Specialist Certificate”. The Certificate will allow families to obtain the necessary certification with just one visit. The aim of the study is to understand whether the Certificate is really able to increase the take up rate and reduce direct and indirect costs to households, or other obstacles must be removed before transfers are really effective for a larger set of potential recipients.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Argentin, Gianluca et al. 2018. "Una valutazione sperimentale del 'certificato specialistico pediatrico' (An experimental evaluation of the 'Pediatric Specialist Certificate')." AEA RCT Registry. September 28. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2433-2.0

Former Citation

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2017-09-14

Intervention End Date

2018-10-12

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Our main outcome is the take-up rate and the time needed to obtain the cash transfer. We plan to use a difference-in-differences estimator to study whether eligible children take-up the transfer more (and more swiftly) if the physician is allowed to compile the “Pediatric Specialist Certificate” with respect to children visited by medical staff not allowed to use the Certificate. We also aim at studying additional outcomes, in particular if and how the planned reduction in the costs needed to obtain the transfers has any effect on the care devoted to children and the quality of life of parents.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Our main outcome is the take up rate. For this outcome, we consider as ‘treatment group’ those children that will be visited by a physician allowed to use the “Pediatric Specialist Certificate” and as ‘control group’ those children visited by a physician not allowed to do so. We expect a positive difference-in-differences coefficient, since being visited by a ‘treated’ physician should increase the probability of a positive take up. For the additional outcomes, like the care devoted to children and the quality of life of parents, we will consider as an additional control group also those children that have already obtained the transfer.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

We plan to randomize physicians in office with a computer, exploiting the lists of physicians provided by the three hospitals who already have asked INPS a PIN number for other operations with the Institute, before the “Pediatric Specialist Certificate” have been defined and designed.

Randomization Unit

We plan to randomize treatment at the physician level within each one of the three hospitals.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

About 200 physicians out of more than 1,300

Sample size: planned number of observations

About 60,000 children with disabilities are visited each year by the three hospitals partner in the trial

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

About 10,000 in the ‘treated’ group. The size of the ‘control group’ will depend on the number of children who have already obtained the cash transfer among the 60,000 children visiting the hospitals

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

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB