Parent-bias, an extension

Last registered on November 11, 2020

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Parent-bias, an extension
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004386
Initial registration date
June 27, 2019

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
July 10, 2019, 1:40 PM EDT

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

Last updated
November 11, 2020, 9:20 AM EST

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of zurich

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Zurich

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2019-06-29
End date
2019-12-27
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This document is an update to the study pre-registered with the AEA RCT Registry with ID AEARCTR-0003535. In a new wave of data collection , we will conduct a series of experimental games to:
1) assess whether parent-bias remains widespread in our sample when we allow respondents to chose an equal split of resources,
2) measure the correlation between our experimental measure of parent-bias and the take-up of commitment devices when making investment decisions,
3) contrast willingness-to-pay for commitment to stick to one's plans to invest in one's child and in another person's child and
4) estimate whether parent-biased respondents have a higher willingness-to-pay to open a bank account in their child's name.

The present document outlines the experimental design and the econometric methods we will use to assess those three points.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
lichand, Guilherme and Juliette Thibaud. 2020. "Parent-bias, an extension." AEA RCT Registry. November 11. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4386-1.2000000000000002
Former Citation
lichand, Guilherme and Juliette Thibaud. 2020. "Parent-bias, an extension." AEA RCT Registry. November 11. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/4386/history/79348
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
We present here the design of experimental games to be included in an additional wave of data collection for our lab-in-the field experiment previously registered with ID: AEARCTR-0003535. Those games have been designed to test the following hypotheses:

1-Does the prevalence of parent-bias shrinks when we allow for an equal split of resources?
2-Do parent-biased respondents have a higher willingness-to-pay to stick to their plans to invest in their children?
3-Do respondents demand less commitment devices to stick to their plans to invest in someone else's child than in their own?
4-Do parent-biased respondents have a higher willingness-to-pay to open a savings' account in their child's name rather than their own?

1-Does the prevalence of parent-bias shrinks when we allow for an equal split of resources?
We contrast a baseline measure of parent-bias to a measure of parent-bias when we allow for equal split of resources
Baseline measure:
We define parent-biased respondents as respondents who discount their own consumption to a larger extent than that of their children. We re-elicit parent-bias in this wave of data collection.

To do so, we ask parents to allocate five packs of peanuts between themselves and their child to be consumed two days later (t=2) and a month later (t=3). To help with this decision, the parents are invited to share 5 packets of peanuts between two plates, one entitled "you, in two days", the other one ``Your child in two days''. The enumerator records this decision. Then the parents are invited to do the same thing for the next allocation. To ensure that all decisions are consequential, the parents are informed that a randomly drawn subset of the respondents will see their decision implemented.

Parent-bias when allowing for an equalitarian split
We will study how the distribution of parent-bias changes when we allow respondents to chose an equalitarian split. To do so, we ask parents to allocate five packs of peanuts between themselves and their child to be consumed two days later (t=2) and a month later, but we allow them to allocate half packets, so that they can choose a 2.5/2.5 allocation if needed. We still define parent-biased respondents as those deciding to allocate a larger share of peanuts to their child at t=3 than t=2


2-Do parent-biased respondents have a higher willingness-to-pay to stick to their plans to invest in their children?

We start by telling respondents that they are entering a lotery in which they can earn 0 or 2,000 kwachas, that they will receive on September 1st, approximately 2 months after the interview. They only learn the outcome of the lotery at the end of the interview. They have the possibility to either receive the lotery price in cash card or to purchase one week (1 hour/day for a week) of tutoring for their child.

We give the parents the possibility to commit to this decision. They are given the choice between having or giving up the possibility to make this choice again just before receiving the money/the tutoring. The flexible option comes accompanied with a bonus. The participants make this decision for different bonus values. At the end of the survey, the participants learn which bonus has been randomly picked and their decision for that amount is executed. This design is a version of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism and ensures that all questions are incentive-compatible.

We measure the parents' willingness-to-pay for investments in children through a series of three to four interdependent binary choices between receiving money or the investment in the child, following a ``staircase'' procedure

Attaching a bonus to the flexible option may be signalling to the parents what is the ``right decision''. We also ask the respondent to chose between the flexible or commitment option with a positive bonus attached to the commitment option.

3-Do respondents demand less commitment devices to stick to their plans to invest in someone else's child than in their own?
The respondents enter another lotery in which they can earn 0 or 2000 kwachas, that they would receive on September 1st. They are informed that they can chose between receiving that money in cash cards or to instead offer a week of tutoring to another person's child. They are informed that they will not know who this other child is andd that neither the beneficiary child nor her family would be informed of the respondent's identity, irrespective of their choice.

They are then given the choice between having or giving up the possibility to make this choice again just before receiving the money/the tutoring. The flexible option comes accompanied with a bonus. The participants make this decision for different bonus values. At the end of the survey, the participants learn which bonus has been randomly picked and their decision for that amount is executed.

4-Do parent-biased respondents have a higher willingness-to-pay to open a savings' account in their child's name rather than their own?
The respondents enter a lotery in which they can earn 0 or 10,000 kwachas. Before learning the lotery outcome, they can choose between 2 options:
1- Receiving the whole money in cash;
2- Opening a savings account at the National bank in their child's name and depositing 5,000 kwachas. Our team will accompany the respondent and the child at the bank and help them with the paper work. The respondent will receive the remaining money in cash.

The respondent are asked this question, with a different “price” associated with each option. If the respondent earns 10,000 kwachas in the lotery, a price will be randomly chosen at the end of the interview and the respondent's decision at that price will be executed.

We measure the parents' willingness-to-pay for the savings' account through a series of three interdependent binary choices. We also elicit the parents' willingness-to-pay to receive the whole money in cash.


Finally, we elicit the parents' relative willingness-to-pay to open a bank account in their name or in their child's name, following the same procedure.
Intervention Start Date
2019-06-29
Intervention End Date
2019-07-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
-Parent-bias
-Willingness to pay to commit to invest in one's child
-Willingness to pay to commit to invest in another person's child
-Willingness to pay to open a savings' account in one's name
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
"Parent-bias" is a dummy variable equal to 1 if the parent choses to allocate a higher share of consumption to the child in period t=3 than in period t=2

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will conduct a series of experimental games as an extension of our original experiment (AEA RCT Registry with ID AEARCTR-0003535).
All mothers from the households of our original sample will be invited to take part in the follow-up. For all of them, we will elicit:
-A renewed measure of parent-bias and inter-temporal preferences,
-Willingness-to-pay to commit to an investment in their child,
-Willingness-to-pay to commit to an investment in another person's child,
-Willingness-to-pay to open a bank account in the child's name

If the household has more than one child of primary-school age, we will randomly select which child will take part in the experiment.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
-A scenario will be randomly chosen to be executed by the data collection tablets, on the field
-The child will be randomly selected to take part in the games by the data collection tablets, on the field
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
80 villages

Sample size: planned number of observations
2,411 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2,411 (there are no separate treatment arms in this trial)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
1-Does the prevalence of parent-bias shrinks when we allow for an equal split of resources? -We will be able to detect a 0.0807 standard deviation difference in the prevalence of parent-bias once we allow respondents to chose an equal split. 2-Do parent-biased respondents have a higher willingness-to-pay to stick to their plans to invest in their children? Assuming that 80% of the respondents in our sample take-up the tutoring for their children and that 30% of our sample is parent-biased, this will enable us to detect a 0.1393 standard deviation difference in the willingness-to-pay for commitment to investments in children between parent-biased and non-parent-biased respondents. 3-Do respondents demand less commitment devices to stick to their plans to invest in someone else's child than in their own? Assuming that 50% of the respondents in our sample take-up the tutoring for their children and that 30% of our sample is parent-biased (in line with our baseline measure without accounting for the price of commitment), this will enable us to detect a 0.1144 standard deviation difference in the willingness-to-pay for commitment to investments in someone else's child. 4-Do parent-biased respondents have a higher willingness-to-pay to open a savings' account in their child's name rather than their own? Assuming that 30% of our sample is parent-biased, this will enable us to detect a 0.1246 standard deviation difference in the willingness-to-pay of parent-biased respondents.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Human Subjects Committee of the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration, and Information Technology, university of zurich
IRB Approval Date
2019-06-05
IRB Approval Number
OEC IRB # 2019-024
IRB Name
NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES Malawi
IRB Approval Date
2019-06-06
IRB Approval Number
NCST/RTT/2/6
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Parent-bias, an extension, pre-analysis plan

MD5: a120d28d39db01f083cfa3fd51f4dd85

SHA1: 1b6339d61f37315e452ab9290a94e0fe793ecc7d

Uploaded At: June 27, 2019

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials