Government employee and beneficiary preferences about redistribution

This survey experiment contains two randomized questions:
1) We randomly present respondents with one of seven hypothetical social protection programs with different budget usage and beneficiary satisfaction characteristics and then ask them to assess program success.
2) We randomly ask respondents to consider the tradeoff between rigidity and leniency in the enforcement of cash transfer conditionality, either before or after asking about the enforcement of conditionality in their communities.

This survey experiment contains two randomized questions:
1) We randomly present respondents with one of seven hypothetical social protection programs, characterized by varying levels of the same parameters (i.e. share of funds disbursed, funds unused, funds unaccounted for, and beneficiaries who are satisfied) characteristics and then ask them to assess program success.
2) We randomly ask respondents to consider the tradeoff between rigidity and leniency in the enforcement of cash transfer conditionality, either before or after asking how many beneficiaries in their communities have had payments reduced or suspended in the last 2 years due to failure to meet conditionality requirements.

2020-10-06

2020-12-12

1) Perceived success of the hypothetical social protection program
2) Belief of the extent to which conditionality should be enforced rigidly or leniently

1) Perceived success of the hypothetical social protection program is measured by a 10-pt ordinal scale (1-unsuccessful to 10-successful)
2) Belief of the extent to which conditionality should be enforced rigidly or leniently is measured by a 10-pt ordinal scale (1- rigidly enforcing conditions to 10-being more lenient)

Information on the impact of Covid-19 in Indonesia

This survey experiment is embedded in a longer survey which also collects information such as:
- How social protection programs are delivered
- Knowledge and prevalence of Covid-19
- Impacts of the pandemic to agriculture, employment, migration, food price, and food security
- Coping strategies of families during the pandemic

This study is embedded in a larger survey of beneficiaries and facilitators of Indonesia’s PKH conditional cash transfer program which gathers information on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Indonesia’s poorest households and communities. We send online surveys to all PKH facilitators (approximately 36,000 facilitators) via WhatsApp and SMS and use dynamic random sampling to each facilitator to distribute surveys to up to 5 randomly selected beneficiaries. Each survey contains two experimental questions:
1) Each respondent is asked to evaluate the success of one hypothetical social program characterized by a set of quantifiable program characteristics. This hypothetical scenario is randomized such that each respondent receives only one of seven possible versions. Respondents are then asked to assess the success of the program. The levels of each program characteristics in each of the seven scenarios are designed to facilitate an analysis of how these characteristics influence perceptions of program success.
2) Each respondent is asked to consider the tradeoff between rigidity and leniency in the enforcement of cash transfer conditionality. This question is asked either randomly before or after asking how many beneficiaries in the respondent’s community have had conditional cash transfer payments reduced or suspended in the last 2 years due to failure to meet conditionality requirements.

The research team's Government of Indonesia partners distribute a link to complete an online survey through its official WhatsApp channels to all facilitators of the PKH conditional cash transfer program (approximately 36,000 individuals). The survey is hosted on the Qualtrics platform. The survey includes a consent form and is expected to take 15-50 minutes. The survey includes 1) non-experimental questions to gauge the COVID-19 situation in their areas, 2) experimental questions on perceptions on social protections, and 3) questions to select a sample of the facilitator's beneficiaries to receive a subsequent survey.
The survey contains two experimental questions:
1) The perceptions of social programs module asks the respondents to evaluate the success of a hypothetical social program with a given set of characteristics: the share of the program's intended funds that reach beneficiaries, the share of funding that is unspent, the share of funding that is unaccounted for, and the share of beneficiaries who are happy with the program. Each respondent is presented with only one hypothetical program, but the characteristics of the program will be randomly assigned to one of seven combinations with varying levels of the program's four given characteristics. The levels of each program characteristic in each of the seven scenarios are designed to facilitate an analysis of how these characteristics influence perceptions of program success. Perceived success of the hypothetical social protection program is measured by a 10-pt ordinal scale (1-unsuccessful to 10-successful).
2) Each respondent is asked to consider the tradeoff between rigidity and leniency in the enforcement of cash transfer conditionality. This question is asked either randomly before or after asking how many beneficiaries in the respondent’s community have had conditional cash transfer payments reduced or suspended in the last 2 years due to failure to meet conditionality requirements. Belief of the extent to which conditionality should be enforced rigidly or leniently is measured by a 10-pt ordinal scale (1- rigidly enforcing conditions to 10-being more lenient).
The non-experimental questions are on basic demographics, how social protection programs are being delivered on the ground (including the enforcement of program conditionality), the availability of health and education services, knowledge of COVID-19, COVID-19 prevalence, COVID-19 prevention measures, challenges in agriculture, unemployment, migration, the prices of staple goods, and any other comments or concerns respondents would like to bring to the attention of the government.
Finally, the facilitator survey instrument assists the facilitator in identifying five randomly selected beneficiaries on his/her roster that have smartphones and asks the facilitator to send the beneficiary survey link to those beneficiaries. Specifically, the instrument asks facilitators to reference their numbered beneficiary rosters and iteratively asks whether beneficiary i on the roster has a smartphone (necessary for completion of the online survey), where i is a randomly-selected, non-repetitive integer from 1 to the total number of beneficiaries on the roster). The selection algorithm continues until 5 beneficiaries with smartphones are select or until 15 attempts are made, whichever is first.
Beneficiaries then access a similar online survey through the link provided to them by their facilitators. This survey includes similar questions as in the facilitator survey, i.e.: 1) experimental questions on perceptions around social protection programs, and 2) non-experimental questions to gauge the COVID-19 situation. The experimental perceptions questions are analogous to those in the facilitator survey.

Participant selection:
For the facilitators, we send out the survey to all facilitators on the official program roster.
Beneficiaries are randomly sampled using a dynamic algorithm within the facilitator survey which randomly selects up to 5 beneficiaries per facilitator, among all of a facilitator’s beneficiaries who have smartphones (necessary for completion of the online survey).
Question randomization:
All experimental questions are randomized automatically by the survey platform.

Individual

No

N/A

48,214 individuals: - Facilitators: 28,460 complete responses (95% could be matched to an official facilitator roster) - Beneficiaries: 19,754 complete responses (85% could be matched to an official facilitator survey)

Sample size by treatment arms for complete responses:

1. Hypothetical social programs
A. Facilitators
Scenario 1 4.047
Scenario 2 4.069
Scenario 3 4.092
Scenario 4 4.073
Scenario 5 4.073
Scenario 6 4.036
Scenario 7 4.070

B. Beneficiaries
Scenario 1 2.830
Scenario 2 2.819
Scenario 3 2.822
Scenario 4 2.801
Scenario 5 2.823
Scenario 6 2.828
Scenario 7 2.831

2. Rigidity vs. leniency conditionality enforcement (asked before or after asking how many beneficiaries in the respondent’s community have had conditional payments reduced or suspended)
A. Facilitators
Before 14.251
After 14.209

B. Beneficiaries
Before 9.858
After 9.896