Racial Discrimination in Local Public Services

Last registered on February 26, 2015
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Racial Discrimination in Local Public Services
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000543
Initial registration date
February 26, 2015

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
February 26, 2015, 10:40 AM EST

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Michael Vlassopoulos
Affiliation
University of Southampton
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Mirco Tonin
PI Affiliation
University of Southampton
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Corrado Giulietti
PI Affiliation
IZA
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2015-02-26
End date
2015-07-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
Discrimination, Law Enforcement
JEL code(s)
J15
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This project aims at assessing whether there exists racial discrimination in the provision of local public services at the county level in the US. In particular, we will focus on six types of public services that span a broad range of activities provided at the local level. Our design entails us sending emails with queries related to the services provided by the above-mentioned offices. The emails will be signed by names that evoke different race (white or black). We will then gauge whether there are systematic differences in the response to these emails, across senders of different race.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Giulietti, Corrado, Mirco Tonin and Michael Vlassopoulos. 2015. "Racial Discrimination in Local Public Services." AEA RCT Registry. February 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.543-1.0
Former Citation
Giulietti, Corrado, Mirco Tonin and Michael Vlassopoulos. 2015. "Racial Discrimination in Local Public Services." AEA RCT Registry. February 26. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/543/history/3666
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Details are provided in the attached analysis plan to be released after the end of the experiment.
Intervention Start Date
2015-02-26
Intervention End Date
2015-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The analysis will be based on the following outcomes: (i) whether a response to the email was sent; (ii) the time it took for the email response to be sent.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Details are provided in the attached analysis plan to be released after the end of the experiment.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomisation will be done using a computer random number generator.
Randomization Unit
Randomisation will be done at the state level and for each type of email recipient separately.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
We will cluster at the state/type of recipient level. This means that we will roughly have 50*6=300 clusters.
Sample size: planned number of observations
22,914 recipients
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Number of observations (22,914) are roughly balanced across treatments.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
(SSEGM) Ethics Committee, University of Southampton
IRB Approval Date
2015-01-14
IRB Approval Number
13518
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials