Credit constraints and demand for remedial education: Evidence from Tanzania

Last registered on April 27, 2020
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Credit constraints and demand for remedial education: Evidence from Tanzania
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0005695
Initial registration date
April 27, 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
April 27, 2020, 11:32 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Tanzania, United Republic of
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Selim Gulesci
Affiliation
Trinity College Dublin
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Jonathan de Quidt
PI Affiliation
Institute for International Economic Studies
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PI Name
Konrad Burchardi
PI Affiliation
Institute for International Economic Studies
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Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2013-09-01
End date
2014-06-22
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
remedial education, liquidity shock, credit constraint
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We study the role of credit constraints in determining households’ willingness to pay for a remedial education program for girls in Tanzania. The program offers tutoring in Math and English, as well as peer-mentoring in life skills to girls via community clubs. Prior to revealing the price of the program, potential participants entered a public lottery for a cash transfer, followed by an incentive-compatible willingness to pay elicitation.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Burchardi, Konrad, Jonathan de Quidt and Selim Gulesci. 2020. "Credit constraints and demand for remedial education: Evidence from Tanzania." AEA RCT Registry. April 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5695-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
As part of its efforts to improve girls' education outcomes in Tanzania, the NGO BRAC runs study clubs for girls aged 12-14 (corresponding to cohorts who should be attending the final two years of primary education in Tanzania). In the morning, the clubs offer tutoring in Math and English to girls who are out of school, and during after-school hours they offer tutoring to girls who are in their final two years of primary education. The tutoring follows the primary education curriculum and is aimed to prepare pupils for the secondary school entrance exams that take place at the end of primary education in Tanzania. Normally, this service is fully subsidized and offered for free. In this project, we designed an experiment which randomly varied the price of the service and measured families' willingness to pay for it. In addition, we provided cash transfers to a random subset of the eligible families and measured the impact of this liquidity shock on their willingness to pay for the program.
Intervention Start Date
2014-06-16
Intervention End Date
2014-06-22

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Willingness to pay for participating in the program
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We collaborated with BRAC to randomize the fee at 69 new clubs in communities that did not previously have one. Each club was randomly assigned one of two fee levels: 36 were assigned to be free clubs (zero fee) and 33 to charge a one-time fee of 3000 TSh (PPP USD 4.06) to girls who wanted to join. Prior to the announcement of the price level, in each community we recruited and surveyed a representative sample of eligible girls and their household heads. At the end of the survey, the eligible girl was invited to participate in a meeting about girls' education (along with a responsible adult). They also received a lottery ticket for a cash prize of 3,200 Tanzanian Shillings, to be drawn during the meeting. Other community members were permitted to attend the meeting, but not to receive a lottery ticket. During the community meetings, first, the lotteries were drawn to award prizes to 50% of eligible attendees. Then, the study club intervention was explained to the participants and we elicited their willingness to pay (WTP) for a one-time access fee to join the club. To measure WTP, we use a ``multiple price list'' (MPL) variant of the approach first developed by Becker, Degroot and Marschak (1964). Once completed, we revealed the price (either 0 or 3,000 TSh), which determined who would gain access to the club, according to their WTP. The price was kept in a sealed envelope and unknown to the implementing team until it was revealed.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization for the price level was done in office by a computer; randomization for the cash transfers was done by a public lottery.
Randomization Unit
Randomization for the price level was a community; the randomization unit for the cash transfers was a household.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
69 clusters
Sample size: planned number of observations
805 households
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
414 households receive the cash transfer; 391 control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Bocconi University Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2013-11-08
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
June 22, 2014, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
June 22, 2014, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
69 communities
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
805 households
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
414 households receive the cash transfer; 391 control
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials