Benchmarking Heterogeneous Programs

Last registered on March 07, 2022

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Benchmarking Heterogeneous Programs

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0009051

Initial registration date

March 04, 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

March 07, 2022, 2:00 PM EST

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

Locations

Country

Congo (Democratic Republic of the)

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Jeremy Magruder

Affiliation

UC-Berkeley

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Eleanor Wiseman

PI Affiliation

UC Berekely

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2019-09-01

End date

2022-09-30

Keywords

Agriculture, Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Other

Additional Keywords

cash transfers, benchmarking

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

We evaluate two interventions: a cash transfer program in urban Goma, D.R.C., and a soft skills, savings, and training intervention in rural Walungu, D.R.C. The objectives of the study are to evaluate which program is a more impactful use of aid dollars. However, as the programs are heterogeneous in location and implementation, they are anticipated to have their strongest impacts on different outcome variables.
This generates challenges in making fair comparisons through a single analysis plan. We propose to use a flexible, data-driven analysis plan following Anderson and Magruder (2022) to identify impacts of each program and generate an apples-to-apples comparison which limits bias inherent to evaluation design.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Magruder, Jeremy and Eleanor Wiseman. 2022. "Benchmarking Heterogeneous Programs ." AEA RCT Registry. March 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9051-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2019-09-01

Intervention End Date

2021-09-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

From the PAP: an Index of Absorptive Capacity, an index of Adaptive Capacity, an index of Entrepreneurship,Employment and migration, and an index of financial outcomes

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

see the PAP.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Credits and Transfers, Conflict and Crime, Depression, subjective well-being, and Trust, Resilience to the volcanic eruption in Goma, General Equilibrium Effects, Transformational Capacity, gender heterogeneity, heterogeneity by age.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

see the PAP

Experimental Design

In Goma: 50 avenues were selected at random to receive $500 cash transfers. All youths residing in these avenues and born between 1st Jan 1994 - 30 Sept 1998 were eligible to receive these cash transfers. 50 avenues were selected at random to receive $1000 cash transfers with the same eligibility criterion. 100 avenues were left as control and did not receive cash transfers.

In addition, we select a subset of respondents at random to receive trainings in FINCA's portfolio of financial products, stratified on treatment.

In Walungu,80 villages were randomly selected from a list of 180 to receive a programming from Pathway 0, programming which involves the creation of savings and lending groups, financial education, employability and entrepreneurship trainings, livelihoods skills trainings, and small ($100) cash grants. An additional 20 villages were added to this list after it was determined that there were too few eligible beneficiaries in the first 80 villages. In addition, 50 of these 100 villages were selected at random to receive $750 cash grants from give directly, again for all eligible youth.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

randomization was done in office by a computer.

Randomization Unit

avenues in Goma and villages in Walungu.

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

180 villages in walungu and 200 avenues in Goma.

Sample size: planned number of observations

about 5000 youth (2500 in Goma and 2500 in Walungu).

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

in Goma: 50 avenues $500 cash transfers, 50 avenues $1000 cash transfers, and 100 avenues control.
in Walungu: 50 villages Pathway 0, 50 villages pathway 0 + cash, 80 villages control.

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

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB