Research Ethics Kenny Ajayi October 6, 2008 Global Poverty and Impact Evaluation

Econometric Resources  Duflo, Esther, Rachel Glennerster, and Michael Kremer.  Using Randomization in Development Economics Research: A Toolkit. Poverty Action Lab White Paper, MIT Using Randomization in Development Economics Research  Wooldridge, Jeffrey.  Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach

Research Ethics  Ethics  Group Projects  Guest Presentation: Robert Van Buskirk

Ethical Concerns

 Fairness (in resource allocation)  Dangers (of unsuccessful programs)

Dupas, 2006  HIV information for Kenyan teenagers  How effective is the current government program?  How effective would additional information be?  How responsive are teenagers to information on relative risks?

Dupas, 2006  HIV information for Kenyan teenagers  National HIV Prevention Curriculum:  Abstinence  Average HIV prevalence in the population  Teacher reinforcement training  NGO Relative Risks Campaign:  Information on HIV prevalence disaggregated by gender and age group  Presentation by trained NGO officer

Dupas, 2006  Statistics Provided by the NGO: Age Female22%36%35%32% Male4%13%28%32%

Dupas, 2006  Statistics Provided by the NGO: Age Female22%36%35%32% Male4%13%28%32%

Dupas, 2006  Statistics Provided by the NGO: Age Female22%36%35%32% Male4%13%28%32%

Model: Risk Information  Risks  HIV infection for those who are not infected  Pregnancy for girls  Reduction Strategies  Abstinence  Condom use

Model: Partner Choice  Adult Men differ from Teenage Boys  Higher HIV Prevalence Rate  Greater Financial Resources  Derive relatively less utility from condom-protected sex  Girls choose sexual partners based on:  Perceived riskiness of partnership  Size of compensation transfer

Information Experiment  Provide Relative Risks Information in a randomly selected subset of schools  Treatment Cohort: 13,000  8 th graders at time of campaign (2004)  Treatment Students: 2,500  Students enrolled in treatment schools during campaign  Comparison Cohort:  Students a year ahead of or below treatment cohort

Randomization Worked

Empirical Strategy  Compare outcomes (Y) one year later  Self-reported sexual behavior  Childbearing and marital status  Characteristics of sexual partners of girls who had started childbearing  Unobserved (Z):

Empirical Strategy  Compare outcomes (Y) one year later  Self-reported sexual behavior  Childbearing and marital status  Characteristics of sexual partners of girls who had started childbearing  Unobserved (Z): HIV status of teenagers in sample

Empirical Strategy  Compare outcomes (Y) one year later  Self-reported sexual behavior  Childbearing and marital status  Characteristics of sexual partners of girls who had started childbearing  Unobserved (Z): HIV status of teenagers in sample  How reliable are these outcome measures?

Ethical Concerns  If we give people information on HIV, they respond with their behavior  Unethical to withhold information that we know is right, if it can be implemented. but  Unethical to give out information that we are not sure is right, or may be misleading

Ethics of NOT Evaluating  Girls prefer to have sexual relationships with older men because these men can provide greater resources.  Girls might substitute away from sexual partnerships with older men if they knew about disaggregated HIV prevalence instead of just average prevalence rates.

Results  Significant Impacts  Increase in reported sexual activity  65% decrease in incidence of pregnancies by adult partners  Decrease in HIV infection risk  Larger behavioral changes on the intensive margin (choice of partner and protection level) than on the extensive margin (choice of abstinence or not)

Results  Spillover Effects  (using variation in density of treated students across secondary schools)

Ethics of Randomization  Deny control group the intervention, but:  Don’t actively hurt them  Don’t give wrong information  Don’t make them worse off than they would otherwise be  Can give a token gift/compensation (but small enough not to make it a treatment in itself)

Ethics of Randomization  Ethics are less contested if:  Budget constraints would have prevented everyone from receiving the intervention anyway  Everyone eventually receives the intervention (i.e. phased-in rollout so that the control group is only left out initially)  Program provides basic treatment (or current best practices) for everybody

Solutions to Ethical Concerns  Study Design  Phase-in (everybody eventually gets treatment)  Lottery (fair means to address budget constraints)  Encouragement (not a direct intervention)  Cluster (often less controversial than randomizing within clusters)  Human Subjects Protocol

Conclusion  Ethics are important to consider even in information campaigns (and especially in HIV studies)  There are ways to address ethical concerns creatively