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Standard experimental designs are geared toward point estimation and hypothesis testing, while bandit algorithms are geared toward in-sample outcomes. Here, we instead consider treatment assignment in an experiment with several waves for choosing the best among a set of possible policies (treatments) at the end of the experiment. We propose a computationally tractable assignment algorithm that we call “exploration sampling,” where assignment probabilities in each wave are an increasing concave function of the posterior probabilities that each treatment is optimal. We prove an asymptotic optimality result for this algorithm and demonstrate improvements in welfare in calibrated simulations over both non-adaptive designs and bandit algorithms. An application to selecting between six different recruitment strategies for an agricultural extension service in India demonstrates practical feasibility.

This paper considers a matching market with two-sided search and transferable utility where match payoffs depend on age at marriage (time until match) and search is finite. We define and prove existence of equilibrium, and provide sufficient conditions for positive assortative matching that build on restricting the slope and curvature of the marriage payoff function to generate single-peaked preferences in age and therefore convex matching sets. Payoff functions that are incompatible with positive sorting by age include all strictly increasing functions and constant flow payoffs enjoyed for some finite period.

This paper experimentally tests the predictions of a principalagent model in which the agent has biased beliefs about his ability. Overconfident workers are found to earn lower wages than underconfident ones because they overestimate their expected payoff, and principals adjust their offers accordingly. Moreover, the profit-maximizing contract distorts effort by varying incentives according to self-confidence, although only the most successful principals use this strategy. These findings have implications for the labor market; in particular, self-confidence is often correlated with gender, implying that principals would prefer to hire men over women simply because they are more overconfident.

This Policy Research Report examines one specific policy approach to improving effective coverage: financial incentives in the form of performance-based financing (PBF) or financial incentives to health workers on the front lines.

In an experiment in Mali, we tested whether patients pressure providers to prescribe unnecessary medical treatment. We varied patients’ information about a discount for antimalarial tablets and measure demand for both tablets and costlier antimalarial injections. We find evidence of patient-driven demand: informing patients about the discount, instead of letting providers decide to share this information, increased discount use by 35 percent and overall malaria treatment by 10 percent. These marginal patients rarely had malaria, worsening the illness-treatment match. Providers did not use the information advantage to sell injections—their use fell in both information conditions.

Dans de nombreux pays à faible revenu et à revenu intermédiaire, la couverture sanitaire s'est considérablement améliorée au cours des deux dernières décennies, mais pas les résultats en matière de santé.

Pre-Analysis Plans (PAPs) for randomized evaluations are becoming increasingly common in Economics, but their definition remains unclear and their practical applications therefore vary widely. Based on our collective experiences as researchers and editors, we articulate a set of principles for the ex-ante scope and ex-post use of PAPs. We argue that the key benefits of a PAP can usually be realized by completing the registration fields in the AEA RCT Registry. Specific cases where more detail may be warranted include when subgroup analysis is expected to be particularly important, or a party to the study has a vested interest. However, a strong norm for more detailed pre-specification can be detrimental to knowledge creation when implementing field experiments in the real world. An ex-post requirement of strict adherence to pre-specified plans, or the discounting of non-pre-specified work, may mean that some experiments do not take place, or that interesting observations and new theories are not explored and reported. Rather, we recommend that the final research paper be written and judged as a distinct object from the “results of the PAP”; to emphasize this distinction, researchers could consider producing a short, publicly available report (the “populated PAP”) that populates the PAP to the extent possible and briefly discusses any barriers to doing so.

This thesis studies the effect of population growth on marriage age and marriage transfers in the context of the marriage squeeze in India, and then extends the inquiry to a general analysis of marriage age patterns. If women marry on average younger than men, increased population growth can cause a surplus of women in the market, because younger cohorts are relatively larger. Chapters 1 and 2 investigate if this so-called marriage squeeze has caused the lamented \"inflation\" of dowries in India, by leading to a higher price for scarce husbands. Chapter 1 documents the changes in population growth, marriage ages, and dowries in India during the 20th century, and shows that the surplus of women under the squeeze must lead to a shrinking marriage age gap that existing models cannot account for. Chapter 2 builds a model of two-sided search with transferable utility in which the match payoff depends on age, and uses it to theoretically and empirically analyze the effect of demographic change on marriage age and transfers at marriage. With data from the Indian census and the National Family Health Survey it is shown that, under the proposed model, the observed shifts in the age distributions and the sex ratio of unmarried men and women in India must lead to higher dowries conditional on the age of the partners. Moreover, a structural estimation of the model parameters additionally suggests that average dowries have increased, and the age gap at marriage has fallen, as a consequence of the squeeze. The positive difference in marriage age between husband and wife that drives the marriage squeeze is not unique to India, but a near universal trait of marriage markets, as is assortative matching by age. Chapter 3 of this thesis uses a continuous variant of the model to characterize a set of match payoff functions consistent with age sorting and \"differential age matching\". Unlike in traditional search models, where the match payoff depends on a fixed type, the payoff function need not be supermodular (submodular) for assortative matching. More generally, this chapter highlights the distinct role of age as a decision criterion in matching and search.

Using in-home health records for 1,763 children in Mali, this paper examines gender differences in the uptake and duration of treatment with antibiotics. The detailed data provide a window into parents’ day-to-day decisions while accounting for symptoms. There are no gender differences in starting treatment, but boys are over 10 percentage points more likely to complete a course of antibiotics than girls. This difference is driven by families with an educated household head. An explanation may be that (male) household heads are less involved in caring for girls, so that benefits from education that lead to better care accrue overproportionally to boys.

Subsidized primary care and community health worker (CHW) visits are important demand sidepolicies in the effort to achieve universal health care forchildren under five. Causal evidence on the effects of these policies, alone and in interaction, is still sparse. Thispaper reports the effects on diarrhea prevention, curative care, and incidence as well as anthropometrics for 1649children from a randomized control trial in Bamako that cross-randomized CHW visits and access to free health care.CHW visits improve prevention and subsidies increase the use of curative care for acute illness, with some indication ofpositive interaction effects. There is no evidence of moral hazard, such as reduced preventive care among familiesreceiving the subsidy. Although there are no significant improvements in malnutrition, diarrhea incidence is reducedby over 70% in the group that receives both subsidies and CHW. Positive effects are concentrated among children ages 0to 2.