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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
The study will involve a baseline survey and an endline survey 12 months later, permitting four rounds of digitized payments to be processed in the intervening period. The study will take place across 16 districts selected by the Bangladeshi government, with 4,000 DSS-eligible households across 122 subdistricts (approximately 33 households per subdistrict) and 2,250 agents across 122 subdistricts (approximately 18 agents per subdistrict).
The randomized experimental arms will be as follows:
Control (61 subdistricts including 2,000 households): No intervention; households continue to receive payments in cash directly from banks at the subdistrict center, according to the status quo schedule for the benefits they receive.
Treatment – Digitization program (61 subdistricts including 2,000 households): Households will have bank accounts opened and will be able to access payments through either local union digital centers (UDCs) or mobile money.
Cross-treatment I – Financial literacy campaign (1,000 households within Control and 1,000 households within Digitization Treatment): Households will receive a 30-minute training session on mobile banking. The one-on-one training will take place in the household, directly between the surveyor and the participant. The surveyor will teach the participant how to use the mobile money platform (BKash), then run three practice transfers of funds between the surveyor’s mobile phone and the participant’s.
Cross-treatment II – Frequency of payments (1,000 households within Digitization Treatment): Households will receive the same yearly total amount in regularly scheduled monthly transfers.
Cross-treatment III – Payment schedule provision (1,000 households within Control and 1,000 households within Digitization Treatment): Households will receive a brief monthly text message providing the schedule of future payments for the remainder of the year (e.g., “Your next payments will be delivered on the following dates: MM/DD/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY, and MM/DD/YYYY.”).
Baseline and endline surveys will be administered at two levels:
1. Household-level survey: The survey will collect information on household demographics, mobile phone usage, banking usage, attitudes towards banking systems, status and experience with benefits transfers, and social agency and socioeconomic status.
2. Agent-level survey: The survey will collect data for a random sample of financial service access points (an “agent” can be a mobile banking agent, a bank branch employee, a banking correspondent, a post office worker, an MFI or a co-op employee, or any individual granted permission to transfer G2P payments).
Data will be cleaned and analyzed using STATA. We will de-identify all data and keep identifiers and key in a separate location secured from those working directly with the data upon receipt. A draft of the survey instrument is attached.
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After
The study will involve a baseline survey and an endline survey 12 months later, permitting four rounds of digitized payments to be processed in the intervening period. The study will take place across 16 districts selected by the Bangladeshi government, with 4,000 DSS-eligible households across 122 subdistricts (approximately 33 households per subdistrict) and 2,250 agents across 122 subdistricts (approximately 18 agents per subdistrict).
The randomized experimental arms will be as follows:
Control (61 subdistricts including 2,000 households): No intervention; households continue to receive payments in cash directly from banks at the subdistrict center, according to the status quo schedule for the benefits they receive.
Treatment – Digitization program (61 subdistricts including 2,000 households): Households will have bank accounts opened and will be able to access payments through either local union digital centers (UDCs) or mobile money.
Cross-treatment I – Financial literacy campaign (1,000 households within Control and 1,000 households within Digitization Treatment): Households will receive a 30-minute training session on mobile banking. The one-on-one training will take place in the household, directly between the surveyor and the participant. The surveyor will teach the participant how to use the mobile money platform (BKash), then run three practice transfers of funds between the surveyor’s mobile phone and the participant’s.
Cross-treatment II – Frequency of payments (1,000 households within Digitization Treatment): Households will receive the same yearly total amount in regularly scheduled monthly transfers.
Cross-treatment III – Payment schedule provision (1,000 households within Control and 1,000 households within Digitization Treatment): Households will receive a brief monthly text message providing the schedule of future payments for the remainder of the year (e.g., “Your next payments will be delivered on the following dates: MM/DD/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY, and MM/DD/YYYY.”).
Baseline and endline surveys will be administered at two levels:
1. Household-level survey: The survey will collect information on household demographics, mobile phone usage, banking usage, attitudes towards banking systems, status and experience with benefits transfers, and social agency and socioeconomic status.
2. Agent-level survey: The survey will collect data for a random sample of financial service access points (an “agent” can be a mobile banking agent, a bank branch employee, a banking correspondent, a post office worker, an MFI or a co-op employee, or any individual granted permission to transfer G2P payments).
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