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Fields Changed

Registration

Field Before After
Study Withdrawn No
Intervention Completion Date July 31, 2018
Data Collection Complete Yes
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) 498 mandal agricultural officers (MAOs); 122 in treatment
Was attrition correlated with treatment status? No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations 22,167 farmers contacted over phone; 5,645,937 farmers with administrative data (bank records)
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms 122 MAOs in treatment, 378 MAOs in control
Public Data URL https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/117431/version/V1/view
Is there a restricted access data set available on request? No
Program Files Yes
Program Files URL https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/117431/version/V1/view
Data Collection Completion Date October 31, 2018
Is data available for public use? Yes
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Papers

Field Before After
Paper Abstract Improving “last-mile” public service delivery is a recurring challenge in developing countries. Could the widespread adoption of mobile phones provide a scalable, cost-effective means for improvement? We use a large-scale experiment to evaluate the impact of phone based monitoring on a program that transferred nearly a billion dollars to 5.7 million Indian farmers. In randomly selected jurisdictions, officials were informed that program implementation would be measured via calls with beneficiaries. This led to a 7.8 percent reduction in the number of farmers who did not receive their transfers. The program was highly cost-effective, costing 3.6 cents for each additional dollar delivered.
Paper Citation Muralidharan, Karthik, Paul Niehaus, Sandip Sukhtankar, and Jeffrey Weaver. "Improving last-mile service delivery using phone-based monitoring." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 13, no. 2 (2021): 52-82.
Paper URL https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20190783
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