Checks and Balances and Nation Building: The Spanish Constitutional Court and Catalonia

Last registered on May 09, 2022

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Checks and Balances and Nation Building: The Spanish Constitutional Court and Catalonia

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0008722

Initial registration date

May 06, 2022

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

May 09, 2022, 8:22 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Spain

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Agustin Casas

Affiliation

CUNEF Universidad

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Federico Curci

PI Affiliation

CUNEF Universidad

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Antoni-Italo De Moragas

PI Affiliation

CUNEF Universidad

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2022-04-20

End date

2022-06-01

Keywords

Electoral, Governance

Additional Keywords

Checks and Balances, Judicial Reviews, Supreme Court, Nation Building, Ethnic identity, Identity Politics

JEL code(s)

D02, O12, O17, K4.

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

We examine whether judicial review can affect nation building by studying how the ruling of the Spanish Constitutional Court on the Catalan Constitution affected Catalan support of secession. Using a public opinion survey we previously find that the ruling led to a 20% increase in support for Catalan independence from Spain in 2010. We expand these results by running our own survey which asks similar and new questions. To obtain the effect of the ruling on identity and preferences, we resort to priming techniques. The uploaded pre-analysis plan discusses the outcomes in the survey, the hypothesis to test, the empirical strategy, the experimental design, and power calculations.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Casas, Agustin, Federico Curci and Antoni-Italo De Moragas. 2022. "Checks and Balances and Nation Building: The Spanish Constitutional Court and Catalonia ." AEA RCT Registry. May 09. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8722-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2022-05-16

Intervention End Date

2022-05-29

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

See pre-analysis plan

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

See pre-analysis plan

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The randomized experiment will divide survey participants into a control group and a treatment group. The treatment will be conducted using priming techniques. The treatment group will receive four questions about the ruling of the Spanish Constitutional Court on the Catalan Constitution, while the control group will be asked four questions about mobile phone usage.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Priming

Randomization Unit

Individuals

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

We perform quota sampling using 16 categories. The quota sampling of our survey is based on sex (2 categories), age (4 categories), province (4 categories), and size of the municipality of residence (6 categories).

Sample size: planned number of observations

3400 observations

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

The sample size is equally divided between treatment arms.

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

For the variable representing whether the respondents prefer more autonomy in the relationship between Catalonia and Spain, the minimum detectable effect size is 0.095. This is obtained assuming a statistical test with 80% power and a level of statistical significance equal to 5%.

Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB