Motivated Reasoning and Perceptions of the US-China Economic Decoupling in Taiwan

Last registered on August 18, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Motivated Reasoning and Perceptions of the US-China Economic Decoupling in Taiwan
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009807
Initial registration date
August 13, 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
August 18, 2022, 2:57 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Taiwan, Province of China
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Hans Tung
Affiliation
NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Terry Cheng
PI Affiliation
Soochow University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2022-06-27
End date
2022-09-30
Keywords
Behavior, Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Electoral, Governance
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The economic and political tensions between US and China have been rising since the Trump administration. Against such a backdrop, the national security concern that was once put aside has returned to the center stage of the US' economic statecraft and made the US economy decouple from China a reasonable strategic solution to reducing the economic dependence on the Chinese economy and supply chain. However, the US-China decoupling may undermine not only the US' and China's economic growth, but also the economic development of other countries, such as Taiwan, which is highly dependent on the US and China in economic terms. To study the role of Taiwan and Taiwanese people's perceptions of decoupling, this project investigates the issues through the lens of motivated reasoning. Particularly, we would like to focus on the views of both the economic elites and ordinary people in Taiwan on the decoupling between the US and China. Moreover, we will investigate how the decoupling concern affects the Taiwanese economic elites' and ordinary people' attitudes toward the US and China.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Cheng, Terry and Hans Tung. 2022. "Motivated Reasoning and Perceptions of the US-China Economic Decoupling in Taiwan." AEA RCT Registry. August 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9807-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2022-07-27
Intervention End Date
2022-09-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1a. Continuous scales (Approval ratings)
1b. Time for information acquisition and processing
1c. discrete choices (Likert items)
2. Preference for an investment plan in a hypothetical country
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Survey experiments:
1. First, subjects are first randomized into two groups of an equal size (i.e.,1000), one of which reads 8 news articles (randomly chosen from 16 articles) on the US-China trade war first, and the other one reads the same number of news articles on these two topics in a reverse order.

2. The other survey experiment uses a conjoint design. Respondents are presented with hypothetical government concession proposals composed of five different aspects of reform (or the status quo). They are also told to imagine that the government is considering . Each of the five aspects of reform has several levels, which are presented randomly during the experiment.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done by computer (Qualtrics).
Randomization Unit
Individuals
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2000 individuals
Sample size: planned number of observations
1. 2,000 for the motivated reasoning part 2. 50,000 for the conjoint experiment part
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Since this study adopts a conjoint design, the concept of treatment arms is not applicable.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Research Ethics Committee, National Taiwan University
IRB Approval Date
2022-06-20
IRB Approval Number
202205HS089
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials