The Impact of Financial Shares on Investment, Social Identity and Political Attitudes

Last registered on May 17, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Impact of Financial Shares on Investment, Social Identity and Political Attitudes
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000634
Initial registration date
February 21, 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 21, 2015, 4:59 PM EST

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

Last updated
May 17, 2024, 3:38 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Israel
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Saumitra Jha
Affiliation
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Moses Shayo
PI Affiliation
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2015-02-01
End date
2017-08-15
Keywords
Education, Electoral, Finance & Microfinance, Governance, Post-conflict
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
O16, G11, F3
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This is a study of the impact of financial shares on investment, social identity and political attitudes
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Jha, Saumitra and Moses Shayo. 2024. "The Impact of Financial Shares on Investment, Social Identity and Political Attitudes." AEA RCT Registry. May 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.634-6.4
Former Citation
Jha, Saumitra and Moses Shayo. 2024. "The Impact of Financial Shares on Investment, Social Identity and Political Attitudes." AEA RCT Registry. May 17. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/634/history/221543
Sponsors & Partners

Sponsors

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Please see attached Pre-Analysis Plan.
Intervention (Hidden)
This research program examines two main sets of questions: (i) Does the provision of temporary exposure to financial assets affect subsequent financial literacy, risk preferences and cross-national and within-nation investment behaviors for men and women? (ii) Can financial assets that expose individuals to common risks and returns across nations and ethnic groups change their social and political attitudes and behaviours? To address these questions, we assign individuals in Israel cash, company stock and index funds, both from within the country and from the Palestinian authority, and use weekly financial surveys that allows them to trade some of their asset allocation for other assets, as well as concurrent surveys to evaluate changes in their social and political attitudes and voting decisions in the 2015 Israeli elections.

We then assign each individual within each block randomly to the following treatments:

Basic Treatment: Assigned Financial Assets/ Cash vs No Financial Assets/ Cash

A random sample of 1036 will be assigned financial assets or cash. A further sample of 309 will not receive the financial surveys or assets but will receive the social survey. They will act as a control group for a treatment that includes the financial survey, exposure to information about Israeli and Palestinian stocks and the weekly opportunity to trade those stocks.

Nested Treatments:
In the sample of 1036 assigned the financial treatment, the following are all randomized independently:
1. Size of endowment: 517 get stocks or cash worth NIS 200 (~$50), 519 will get portfolios initially worth NIS 400 (~$100).

2. Portfolio endowment of cash vs one of each of the six Israeli or Palestinian assets listed below. They are paired so one each is Israeli and Palestinian. Each individual will get an `asset’ which tracks one stock. There are 138/ 139 individuals assigned to each of the following assets.
● Banking Sector Stocks: Bank of Palestine and Bank Leumi (which means “National Bank”). These are retail banks.
● Telecoms Sector Stocks: Palestine Telecommunications (the largest private employer in Palestine) and Bezeq (the former Israeli telecoms monopoly).
● Index Funds: the Palestine Stock Exchange General Index Fund vs the Tel-Aviv 25 Index Fund.

● Cash: A subset of 206 receive cash rather than stocks (but still get the same weekly surveys with the ability to buy some financial asset). This is to provide a control group for the potentially confounding wealth effect of stock endowments.

3. Redemption date: We will allow a random subset of individuals to redeem their portfolios in the week prior to the elections (March 17, 2015) and compare them to individuals who were allowed to redeem their portfolios subsequently.
Intervention Start Date
2015-02-12
Intervention End Date
2015-04-02

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
(please see details in attached Pre-Analysis Plan).

Primary Outcomes (explanation)
(please see details in attached Pre-Analysis Plan).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Please see attached Pre-Analysis Plan.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Stratified randomization conducted in office via Stata. Please see Appendix in attached Pre-Analysis Plan.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1418 individuals
Sample size: planned number of observations
1418 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Please see attached Pre-Analysis Plan.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Stanford University IRB
IRB Approval Date
2015-01-09
IRB Approval Number
FWA00000935 (SU)
IRB Name
Hebrew University IRB
IRB Approval Date
2015-01-27
IRB Approval Number
NA
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre-Analysis Plan

MD5: ceccbe6093f1b62c4231250ef88bf4bd

SHA1: 0b55b6875957439da62f461d222744d7e779a8a3

Uploaded At: February 21, 2015

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