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Pro-social or Career Motivated Politicians? Evidence from Village Elections in Pakistan

Last registered on April 12, 2015
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Pro-social or Career Motivated Politicians? Evidence from Village Elections in Pakistan
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000685
Initial registration date
April 12, 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
April 12, 2015, 8:56 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Pakistan
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Saad Gulzar
Affiliation
Princeton University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Yasir Khan
PI Affiliation
International Growth Center
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2015-04-06
End date
2015-07-31
Keywords
Governance
Additional Keywords
Elections, Political Selection
JEL code(s)
D72, H7
Secondary IDs
Abstract
What motivates people to seek political office? We design and evaluate an experiment to study how non-elite prospective politicians can be motivated to seek political office by priming them on career or pro-social benefits from entering politics, reducing the cost of filing for candidacy by offering the services of a lawyer, and providing a signal on individual-level electability. We interview prospective politicians at the village level, as well as the universe of people who declare candidacy in 210 villages. We study who decides to participate in a training we organize for elections, as well as in filing for candidacy. Finally we study who is voted into the village council.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gulzar, Saad and Yasir Khan. 2015. "Pro-social or Career Motivated Politicians? Evidence from Village Elections in Pakistan." AEA RCT Registry. April 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.685-1.0
Former Citation
Gulzar, Saad and Yasir Khan. 2015. "Pro-social or Career Motivated Politicians? Evidence from Village Elections in Pakistan." AEA RCT Registry. April 12. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/685/history/4104
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
1. Delivery of career and social benefits from running for political office through canvassing and training
2. Delivery of information regarding electability
3. Services of a lawyer to help with paper filing
Intervention Start Date
2015-04-07
Intervention End Date
2015-06-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We will test outcomes at the training stage and the candidacy stage, where we obtain individual data through a primary survey, and at the voting stage, where we can use elections data at the village level to study voting behavior. Outcomes will include who shows up to the trainings? Who files papers? Who is declared a successful candidate? Who is voted into office? Measure of pro-sociality and career motivations at each level.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We design a village level pilot experiment in 2 districts of KP, Pakistan. This involves the randomized roll out of social mobilizers to villages. Field activities will proceed as follows: a pair of social mobilizers will canvass the village with the aim of reaching about 50 households. They will prime the HHs on career, or social incentives to run for office and inform them about a training on local elections the following day. Then mobilizers will then compile a list of all the nominated people, and approach them to deliver individual level treatments.

The training will be organized in the village to make it accessible for everyone. The participants of the trainings will be explained the formal process of declaring candidacy for the village council elections. They will also be primed again on the career or social incentives of running for office. We aim to complete these activities before the official date of announcement of candidacies. After the declaration of the candidates we will send our teams to the same villages again to conduct in-depth surveys of people who have declared their candidacy for the village councils.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Done in office on a computer.
Randomization Unit
Villages and individuals
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
230 villages
Sample size: planned number of observations
1500 nominees, 8000 households
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
23 villages per the smallest treatment arms
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University Committee on Activities Involving Human Subjects, NYU
IRB Approval Date
2015-04-06
IRB Approval Number
15-10593
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

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