Higher program take-up? The role of awareness, bottlenecks, and trust

According to data from the United Nations Refugee Agency by 2021, more than 4.6 million Venezuelans had left their country and approximately 1.7 million were settled in Colombia—an equivalent shock of approximately 3 percent of Colombia’s total population. Colombia is currently the primary recipient of Venezuelan migrants fleeing from the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis.

The Colombian government has maintained a generous policy towards Venezuelan migrants by granting them free mobility and access to labor markets. In 2018, the Colombian government gave approximately half a million irregular Venezuelan migrants in Colombia the opportunity to regularize their migratory situation in Colombia through the PEP-RAMV program. Interestingly, only roughly more than half of the eligible migrants applied for the regularization program. Ibáñez et al. (2020) document that migrant’s reasons for not registering include (i) lack of awareness about the program, (ii) lack of trust in the Colombian government explained by fears of deportation, and (iii) registration bottlenecks (or lack of information about how to apply).

In 2021 the Colombian government announced that the migrant’s regularization program was going to be extended to any Venezuelan migrant who arrived in Colombia before February of 2021; the new migratory status is to be valid for 10 years and will grant migrants access to labor markets and social safety nets. Our research team is conducting a randomized control trial that evaluates the effectiveness of delivering information about the regularization program on the program’s take-up rates. Particularly, we will evaluate the effectiveness of information that aims to solve issues of information on the program’s (i) awareness, (ii) trust towards the government, and (iii) reducing registration bottlenecks.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Ibáñez, Ana María et al. 2022. "Higher program take-up? The role of awareness, bottlenecks, and trust." AEA RCT Registry. February 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8672-1.1

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

We will randomly assign 4,180 Venezuelan refugees into four groups (one control and three treatment arms). Each of the treatment arms consists of sending a video through WhatsApp that will aim at reducing: i) lack of awareness for the program, ii) mistrust towards the government, and (iii) registration bottlenecks.

Update on the pre-analysis plan, on February 2 of 2022: We have finalized the pre-registration for our experiment and were only able to find 1,438 eligible individuals for the intervention. Consequently, we had to update our sample statistical considerations and power calculations in the following way:

• The sample is only representative of Santa Marta and the other smaller areas together (this includes Cienaga, Sabanalarga, Fundación, y Baranoa).

• The sample will not be stratified by individual covariates so the specification will not include any controls.

1. Based on this sample size we will assign the 1,438 individuals to the four treatment arms randomly. After the intervention is administered and when we collect the follow-up surveys we will estimate the impacts of the videos as originally specified in equation (1) of the pre-analysis plan, but excluding covariate controls:

Yi = α + β1Video1i + β2Video2i + β3Video3i + εi (1)

2. Additionally, we will also examine the effectiveness of the interventions by

a. Pooling all treatment videos in one group and comparing the control group with a pool dummy of treatment videos in the following way:

Yi = α + βVideosi + εi (2)

b. Pooling the 3 treatment groups in only 2 corresponding to the following specifications:

Yi = α + βVideos1i + β2Video2and3i + εi (3)
Yi = α + βVideos1 and 2i + βVideos3i εi (4)

Specification (3) pools videos 2 and 3 together as they target empathy for a member of the same ethnic groups (both are presented by a Venezuelan) whereas Video 1 is presented by a Colombian. Specification (4) pools the videos 1 and 2 as they target the same information whereas video 3 offers more information. Our objective with these modification is to try and boost our statistical power.

Intervention Start Date

2022-01-10

Intervention End Date

2022-01-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

1) Changes in awareness about the program, 2) intentions to register, and 3) actual registration to the PPT program.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

1) Investment intentions, 2) contribution intentions, 3) political participation intentions, 4) migration intentions, 5) aspiration in Colombia, 6) trust, and 7) social cohesion.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

For each one of the secondary outcomes listed above we will construct an index following the methodology of f Kling, Liebman and Katz (2007) .

Experimental Design

We will survey 4,180 Venezuelan refugees from Atlántico and Magdalena departments of Colombia. Individuals will be randomly assigned into four groups:

1) Treatment 1: (Information Video)
2) Treatment 2: (Information Video leveraging in-group trust)
3) Treatment 3: (Registration Process Video leveraging in-group trust)
4) Treatment 4: (No treatment)

After treatment, we will administer five surveys to each individual who participates in our study. They will be implemented in the following timeline:
1. Right after the video, in the same platform, participants will see a link to access to a web survey with questions on the intention to register and the intervention video.
2. Two weeks after the first follow-up survey we will administer a second survey through WhatsApp with questions related to the registry process and the intervention video.
3. Two weeks after the second follow-up survey we will administer a third survey through WhatsApp with questions related to the registry process and the intervention video (the same questions of the second survey).
4. Two weeks after the third follow-up survey we will administer a fourth survey through WhatsApp with questions related to the registry process and the intervention video (the same questions of the second and third survey).
5. Approximately 1 month after the fourth follow-up, we will administer a fifth survey through WhatsApp with questions that measure changes in (i) social capital, (ii) social cohesion, (iii) migration intentions, and (v) plans for the future

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

The randomization was done in an office by a computer.

Randomization Unit

Individuals

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Does not apply

Sample size: planned number of observations

4,180 Individuals

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

1) Treatment 1: 1,045
2) Treatment 2: 1,045
3) Treatment 3: 1,045
4) Treatment 4: 1,045

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

The sample size was estimated to guarantee: i) representativeness of the Venezuelan population according to the census of 2018, ii) 5% of power for four arms of intervention on information nudges, iii) representativeness at subregion, municipality, and individual level, and iv) stratification based on age, gender, and education level.

Supporting Documents and Materials

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