Economic Success through Salvation? Experimental Evidence from the Evangelical Movement

Last registered on February 07, 2022

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Economic Success through Salvation? Experimental Evidence from the Evangelical Movement

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0008931

Initial registration date

February 05, 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

February 07, 2022, 1:38 PM EST

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

Locations

Country

Uganda

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Francesco Loiacono

Affiliation

Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Jakob Svensson

PI Affiliation

Professor

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Andreas Madestam

PI Affiliation

Associate Professor

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2020-11-01

End date

2023-06-30

Keywords

Behavior, Welfare

Additional Keywords

Religion

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

A vast literature has documented the importance of cultural beliefs and norms for economic performance. In search of the ultimate link between beliefs and prosperity, an obvious role has been suggested for religion. Evangelicalism is among the most dynamic religious movements in the world and is the fastest growing portion of Christianity. Yet despite this expansion, little is known about the evangelical movement’s expansion, especially at the individual level.

This project examines the causal impact of joining the evangelical movement on economic well-being and various other socioeconomic outcomes. The impact will be assessed using a randomized-control encouragement design.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Loiacono, Francesco, Andreas Madestam and Jakob Svensson. 2022. "Economic Success through Salvation? Experimental Evidence from the Evangelical Movement." AEA RCT Registry. February 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8931-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2020-11-01

Intervention End Date

2023-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

i) Religious activities and beliefs;
ii) Primary economic outcomes (incl. monthly consumption, monthly income, adult weekly labor supply, assets, access to credit, and perceived economic status);
iii) Primary well-being outcomes (incl. measures of life satisfaction and health status);
iv) Preferences and beliefs (including risk aversion, optimism measures, self-control measures, moral values and trust measures);
v) Family outcomes (marriage, domestic violence, alcohol consumption, and children’s schooling outcomes);
vi) Social ties and connections; and vii) Political beliefs and attitudes.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Impact will be assessed using a randomized-control encouragement design. Specifically, the evaluation will exploit one of several outreach activities run by a local Pentecostal church, where members of the ministry makes personal visits to individuals and invites the visitees to attend a service run by the church. The proposal calls for randomly assigning the set of individuals who receive a visit from the members (pastors) of the ministry, without changing the number of pastors involved in the outreach or the time they spend in the field.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

Individual level, stratified by city

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

N/A

Sample size: planned number of observations

3,000 individuals

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

1,500 in the encouragement group and 1,500 in the control one

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

We estimate that a design with 3,000 households, assuming a 30 percentage points difference in attending service between those being invited and those not being invited, has 80% power to detect a statistically significant effect size of 0.34 standard deviations.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB