Comparing Performance of Methods to Deal With Differential Attrition in Randomized Experimental Evaluations

Financial incentives for COVID-19 vaccines in a rural low-resource setting: a cluster-randomized trial

We implemented a clustered randomized controlled trial with 6,963 residents in six rural Ghana districts to estimate the causal impact of financial incentives on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination uptake. Villages randomly received one of four video treatment arms: a placebo, a standard health message, a high cash incentive (60 Ghana cedis) and a low cash incentive (20 Ghana cedis). For the first co-primary outcome-COVID-19 vaccination intentions-non-vaccinated participants assigned to the cash incentive treatments had an average rate of 81% (1,733 of 2,168) compared to 71% (1,895 of 2,669) for those in the placebo treatment arm. For the other co-primary outcome of self-reported vaccinations 2 months after the initial intervention, the average rate for participants in the cash treatment was 3.5% higher than for participants in the placebo treatment (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.001, 6.9; P = 0.045): 40% (602 of 1,486) versus 36.3% (672 of 1,850). We also verified vaccination status of participants: in the cash treatment arm, 36.6% (355 of 1,058) of verified participants had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine compared to 30.3% (439 of 1,544) for those in the placebo-a difference of 6.3% (95% CI: 2.4, 10.2; P = 0.001). For the intention and the vaccination outcomes, the low cash incentive (20 Ghana cedis) had a larger positive effect on COVID-19 vaccine uptake than the high cash incentive (60 Ghana cedis). Trial identifier: AEARCTR-0008775 .

Linking Trait Affectivity, Cognitive Ability, and Preferences Among Top Managers: Insights From a Lab-In-The-Field Experiment

Even though there has been increasing interest in the role of cognition in leadership and in identifying the personality traits of effective leaders, there is a paucity of studies that investigate the unique influence of managers' trait affectivity and cognitive ability on their different risk and time preferences. This paper investigates the role of managers' trait affectivity and cognitive ability in their loss aversion and present bias among 623 top managers at textile and garment firms in Vietnam. We combine data on preferences elicited through a lab-in-the-field experiment with survey data. We find that managers with high positive affectivity (PA) or cognitive ability are less subject to loss aversion and present bias. In contrast, a manager with high negative affectivity (NA) is more likely to be impatient and loss averse. Furthermore, heterogeneity of trait affectivity and cognitive ability determines different loss aversion and present bias levels of managers in SMEs vis-à-vis their counterparts in large firms. Remarkably, we observe striking evidence that trait affectivity and cognitive ability significantly affect loss aversion and present bias levels of managers who were born during the Vietnam War. Still, it is not the story of their counterparts born after the Vietnam War. The results of our study are expected to provide valuable information regarding the role played by trait affectivity and cognitive ability in determining managers' loss aversion and present bias in different pathways.