The effect of receiving philanthropic benefits on the preference for redistribution

Last registered on September 13, 2021

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The effect of receiving philanthropic benefits on the preference for redistribution
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008210
Initial registration date
September 11, 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
September 13, 2021, 5:14 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Monash University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Monash University
PI Affiliation
Monash University

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2020-08-07
End date
2022-02-28
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
Schools in Bangladesh have been closed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Partnering with the Global Development and Research Initiative (GDRI), a research-focused NGO operating in the South-West region of Bangladesh, we delivered two educational interventions to primary school-age children free of charge. The children in these two interventions were randomly selected. In this study, we aim to investigate whether receiving philanthropic benefits affect people’s preference for redistribution. We will use standard lab-in-the-field experiments for this purpose.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hassan, Hashibul, Asad Islam and Liang Choon Wang. 2021. "The effect of receiving philanthropic benefits on the preference for redistribution." AEA RCT Registry. September 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8210-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Study 1: We recruited student volunteers from various local universities as mentors to provide free learning support to primary school-age children and also home-schooling advice to their mothers every week for 13 consecutive weeks. During the intervention period, each mentor called the mother at least once a week at a pre-determined time and day to provide support to the child on home-schooling over the phone. The mentor provided the child with textbook solutions “on-demand”, the mother with guidance in setting weekly goals (such as weekly time involvement and curriculum target), and homeschooling assistance for both the child and the mother (such as learning plans and solution keys).

Study 2: In this intervention, a set of audio lessons using an Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) methodology was delivered to participating children free of charge. IRI is a method that allows learners to stop and react to questions and exercises through verbal response and to engage in physical and intellectual activities with a ‘special helper’, such as an adult household member, while the program is ‘on the air’. To deliver these lessons, we established two Interactive Voice Response (IVR) based toll-free numbers. We delivered these lessons to children in grades two to four over 15 weeks via basic mobile phones.
Intervention Start Date
2020-09-04
Intervention End Date
2021-10-14

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Distributive preferences of the program participating children
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Children’s preferences are measured using standard lab-in-the-field economic experiments. We use three experiments where children decide as a spectator so that the experiments can be executed in a one-on-one setting while keeping a physical distance (to minimize the potential spread of COVID-19). These three tasks are related to the notion of distributive justice. The decisions made in the distributive justice experiments do not affect the earnings of the participants but have real consequences for the gift received by “other” non-participating children.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Distributive preferences of the program participating children's mothers
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Similar to children experiments

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Study 1: We implement the intervention as a parallel-group randomized controlled experiment. From a list of 6000+ children provided by GDRI, we randomly selected 968 mother-child dyads across 206 villages. 838 of them met the specific eligibility criteria (i.e., the child was in grade 1, 2, or 3, and the household had permanent and reliable access to a phone). Among the 838 mother-child dyads, we randomly assigned half (419) to the treatment arm – those who received weekly telementoring – and the remaining half to the control arm, where no telementoring was provided.

Study 2: We implement this intervention using a multi-arm RCT design. In T1: Standard group, we offered a literacy and numeracy module. In T2: Extended group, we include the ‘noncognitive skill’ module in addition to the literacy and numeracy module. In T3: pure control group, we offer nothing. We randomly selected about 16-22 children from each of these 90 villages. The final sample size includes 1741 children from 1732 households, where 574 children and 30 villages in T1, 586 children and 30 villages in T2, and 577 children and 30 villages in T3. This educational intervention lasts for 15 weeks.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization is done on an office computer using Stata’s random number generator.
Randomization Unit
Study 1 - pupil
Study 2 - village
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Study 1 - Not clustered
Study 2 - 90 villages
Sample size: planned number of observations
Study 1 - 838 children/ pupils Study 2 - 1741 children/ pupils
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Study 1 - 419 children/ pupils
Study 2 - 1160 children/pupils & 60 villages
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2020-07-13
IRB Approval Number
25039
IRB Name
Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2021-03-03
IRB Approval Number
27474
Analysis Plan

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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