Using randomized survey experiments with politicians and the general population, we study how social mobility in education affects preferences for education policies.
Our design allows us to address several important questions: i) which type of education policies are favoured?, ii) how do information about social mobility in education affect preferences for education policies?, iii) does it make a difference for preferences towards education policies if information about social mobility are provided for natives vs. foreigners? iv) to what extent are politicians different from the general population?
Our research design includes surveys with randomized components with politicians and the general population. The survey with polticians is sent out by email, using hand collected email information for local, federal-state and federal politicians in Germany. The survey with the general population will be representative for the general population and is carried out on our behalf by a commecial survey company.
External Link(s)
Citation
Blesse, Sebastian and Philipp Doerrenberg. 2018. "Implications of social mobility for education policies. Evidence from a randomized survey experiments with politicians and the general population." AEA RCT Registry. March 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2759-1.0.
Former Citation
Blesse, Sebastian, Philipp Doerrenberg and Philipp Doerrenberg. 2018. "Implications of social mobility for education policies. Evidence from a randomized survey experiments with politicians and the general population." AEA RCT Registry. March 01. http://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2759/history/26235.
Several questions eliciting preferences for different types of education policy
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Experimental Design
Surveys with politicians and a representative sample of the German population. Survey questions cover preferences for education policy and other types of policy preferences. The survey includes randomized components that provide different information about social mobility in education policies. The randomized component includes a control group that is not provided any particular information. Treatment group I is provided information about social mobility in education of children who come from low-education households. Treatment group II is provided information about social mobility in education of non-native children who come from low-education households. The information provided are based on OECD statistics. The illustration is based on recent study by Alesina et al. (2018, AER).
The survey for politicians is sent out by email to politicians on the local, federal-state and federal level, using hand-collected email information. The survey for the general population is carried out on our behalf by a commercial survey company.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Survey with politicians: randomization done by survey software.
Survey with general population: randomization done by commercial survey provider through their survey software.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No
Sample size: planned number of clusters
Number of cluster = number of individuals in our surveys
Sample size: planned number of observations
Survey with general population: 2,500 individuals
Survey with politicians: survey sent to XX individuals (response quota unknown ex-ante)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Roughly 1/3 of survey participants assigned to control group, roughly 1/3 to information treatment I, roughly 1/3 to information treatment II
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)