Auditing Business Safety Inspectors

Last registered on July 18, 2022

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Auditing Business Safety Inspectors

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0009125

Initial registration date

July 15, 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

July 18, 2022, 9:23 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Peru

Region

Lima

Primary Investigator

Name

Manuel Barron

Affiliation

Universidad del Pacifico

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Ana Goicoechea

PI Affiliation

World Bank

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PI Name

Guadalupe Bedoya

PI Affiliation

World Bank

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PI Name

Paul Gertler

PI Affiliation

UC Berkeley

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PI Name

Diego Garcia Montufar

PI Affiliation

World Bank

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Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2021-07-01

End date

2022-12-31

Keywords

Firms & Productivity, Governance

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

O12

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

In collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and up to five municipalities in Peru, we will conduct an experiment to evaluate whether variations in the implementation of the building safety-regulation can improve state's capacity and safety and reduce leakages. Most firms require multiple visits to obtain the safety certificate and start operations, creating inefficiencies and opportunities for rent-seeking. Constraints identified in this system include high discretion in the application of the regulation and low capacity to enforce the regulation by municipalities in charge of the implementation. We are rolling out an electronic inspection system and will assess the impact of increasing inspector accountability through random audits.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Barron, Manuel et al. 2022. "Auditing Business Safety Inspectors." AEA RCT Registry. July 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9125-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Business safety inspections in Peru are conducted by municipal inspectors who have little or no oversight. Together with a vague regulation, this creates room for rent-seeking and gives inspectors little incentives to exert effort. In collaboration with up to three municipalities in Lima, we are setting up an auditing system where a highly trained third-party auditor visits recently inspected firms and double-checks a random subset of inspection items. One treatment arm has a high audit rate (~70%) and the other a low audit rate (~20%).

Intervention Start Date

2021-12-14

Intervention End Date

2022-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Our primary outcomes are discrepancies between the inspector and the auditor: total, and split between number of NA, comply, and does not comply; discrepancy in inspection outcome (pass/fail); duration of the inspection.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Inspectors are randomly assigned to High or Low audit intensity arms, which will determine if 70 or 20% of their inspections will be audited. The trial will run for 6 months.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer.

Randomization Unit

The inspector.

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

We expect to have 100 inspectors. This number depends on the municipalities that agree to participate in the study. Some are larger, with 60 inspectors, and others are small, with fewer than 10 inspectors.

Sample size: planned number of observations

The unit of observation is the inspection. If each inspector conducts 4 inspections per day, there would be 120 visits on average over a 6-week period. Thus, with 100 inspectors we would have 12,000 observations.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

50 inspectors in treatment, 50 inspectors in control arm.

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

The minimum detectable effect size for our main outcomes is 0.15 standard deviations. Assumptions: Confidence level = 0.95 Power = 0.80 Number of inspectors per treatment arm = 41 In case we do not reach our expected value of 50 inspectors per treatment arm, we would be powered with 82 inspectors. Correlation between outcomes of the same inspector = 0.05 We consider that the correlation between outcomes of the same inspector will be low given the diversity of businesses each inspector usually visits. Stata code local r1 = 0.05 local mean1 = 0 local mean2 = 0.15 local sd1 = 1 local sd2 = 1 local ratio = 1 local pre = 0 local post = 120 sampsi `mean1' `mean2', sd1(`sd1') sd2(`sd2') ratio(`ratio') pre(`pre') post(`post') r1(`r1') power(0.80)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB