How to reduce discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment in amateur football

Last registered on November 01, 2021

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

How to reduce discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment in amateur football

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0008049

Initial registration date

October 29, 2021

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

November 01, 2021, 12:44 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Norway

Region

Trondelag

Primary Investigator

Name

Cornel Nesseler

Affiliation

UiS

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Robert Dur

PI Affiliation

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez

PI Affiliation

University of Zurich

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2021-10-15

End date

2021-12-10

Keywords

Behavior

Additional Keywords

Discrimination

JEL code(s)

C93, J71, Z20

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

A national football federation sends an email to coaches of amateur football clubs, pointing to the important role football plays in promoting inclusivity and reducing racism in society. The email also describes findings from earlier studies showing that discrimination is present in amateur football. Each amateur football club in the country is randomly assigned to either receiving the email or not. At most one coach per club is contacted. In the next stage of the experiment, fictitious applications will be sent to coaches asking if it is possible to join a training session. The applications, which are send by email, will differ only in the contact name (foreign- or native-sounding names). We study whether coaches who were sent the email from the national football federation respond differently to the email requests to join a training session as compared to coaches who were not sent the email from the national football federation. Our main prediction is that the email from the federation leads to an increase in positive responses to email requests to join a training session signed with a foreign name, whereas we expect no effects for email requests to join a training session signed with a native name. A positive response is defined as either an invitation to come to a training or a conditional acceptance (e.g. yes, you're welcome, but only if you are a player of a particular type, e.g. defender).

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Dur, Robert, Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez and Cornel Nesseler. 2021. "How to reduce discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment in amateur football." AEA RCT Registry. November 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8049-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2021-10-15

Intervention End Date

2021-12-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Our outcome variable is the response of coaches of the amateur football clubs to the request to join a training. In the control group (the group of coaches who have not been sent an email by the federation), we expect a positive gap in positive response rates to emails signed with a native and foreign-sounding name. In the treatment group, we expect that this gap is smaller. A positive response is defined as either an invitation to come to a training or a conditional acceptance (e.g. yes, you're welcome, but only if you are a player of a particular type, e.g. defender).

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Previous field experiments show that amateur soccer clubs discriminate against people with foreign-sounding names. We want to replicate parts of these experiments. In addition, our key aim is to detect if it is possible to decrease discrimination.

We follow the method of previous research (e.g., Nesseler et al., (2019) or Gomez-Gonzalez et al., (2021)). Thus, we create fictitious amateur soccer players that are asking amateur soccer teams to participate in a trial session. We then evaluate the response of the soccer clubs.

Following the recommendations of the ethical committee, we send another email to coaches who respond to the request to join a training. The email aims to minimize the impact on coaches and reads as follows: "Thank you very much for your answer. Unfortunately, I am no longer interested."

References
Gomez-Gonzalez, C., Nesseler, C., & Dietl, H. M. (2021). Mapping discrimination in Europe through a field experiment in amateur sport. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00773-2

Nesseler, C., Gomez-Gonzalez, C., & Dietl, H. (2019). What’s in a name? Measuring access to social activities with a field experiment. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 5(1), 1-7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0372-0

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

Individual club

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

973 amateur clubs

Sample size: planned number of observations

973 coaches at 973 different amateur clubs

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

973 coaches at 973 different amateur clubs

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Assuming the positive response rate to applications with foreign-sounding name in the control group is 50%, we are adequately powered for a 12,5 percentage points treatment effect on response rate, which is about the size of the gap in positive response rates between native and foreign-sounding names for Norway in the earlier studies mentioned above.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB