The Welfare Effects of Woodwork Effects

Last registered on March 19, 2020
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Welfare Effects of Woodwork Effects
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0005566
Initial registration date
March 17, 2020

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
March 19, 2020, 12:05 PM EDT

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
Jenna Anders
Affiliation
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Charlie Rafkin
PI Affiliation
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2020-03-18
End date
2020-05-31
Keywords
Welfare
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This experiment tests whether beliefs about means-testing of a social program affects individuals' attitudes towards the program.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Anders, Jenna and Charlie Rafkin. 2020. "The Welfare Effects of Woodwork Effects." AEA RCT Registry. March 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5566-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The experiment will be embedded in a survey about the stigma around SNAP. Respondents will be given information intended to change their beliefs about the share of Americans who are eligible for SNAP.
Intervention Start Date
2020-03-18
Intervention End Date
2020-03-25

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Beliefs: We will ask survey respondents what they believe is the share of Americans overall who were eligible for SNAP in 2016.
Stigma index: We will ask respondents for the extent of their agreement or disagreement to eight statements which are intended to measure the stigma they perceive around food stamps.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The stigma instrument contains eight statements, and respondents indicate their agreement on a scale of 1 to 9. The scale does not increase with stigma for every statement; two will be reverse-coded.
To create the main outcome, we will aggregate responses to the eight statements. We will also create two subindices: one for self-stigma, which will include two of the eight statements, and one for social stigma, which will include four of the eight statements.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Attention check: We will ask survey respondents what the acronym “SNAP” stands for. This is a multiple choice survey question with four choices. We will use this to measure and adjust for inattention. We will also consider respondents inattentive if they report beliefs of overall eligibility outside the interval [1%,99%].
We will also evaluate effects on individual items in the stigma instrument.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experiment has a 2x2 randomization design. All respondents will be asked to report their beliefs about the share of Americans who had low enough income to qualify for SNAP in 2016. All respondents will be provided with a “hint,” which provides this statistic for “one U.S. state.” The first randomization (50/50) affects whether the hint corresponds to a state with a relatively high or relatively low eligibility share. The second randomization (50/50) involves a beliefs correction intervention, where we tell treatment respondents the true share of Americans who had low enough income to qualify for SNAP.

We will incentivize accurate belief reporting with the promise of a donation made to the charity of the respondent’s choice if their response is the closest to the truth (or, if they tie for the most accurate response, if they are chosen at random among those whose response is closest to the truth).
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Computer/survey platform
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
No clustering
Sample size: planned number of observations
2,500 respondents
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
625 in each of four treatment arms (2x2 randomization with equal probability)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University-Area Committee on the Use of Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2020-03-12
IRB Approval Number
IRB20-0326
IRB Name
MIT Committee on the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2020-02-18
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

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