Designing Experiments to Measure Spillover Effects, Second Version
68 Pages Posted: 19 Jun 2015
Date Written: June 17, 2015
Abstract
This paper formalizes the design of experiments intended specifically to study spillover effects. By first randomizing the intensity of treatment within clusters and then randomly assigning individual treatment conditional on this cluster-level intensity, a novel set of treatment effects can be identified. We develop a formal framework for consistent estimation of these effects, and provide explicit expressions for power calculations. We show that the power to detect average treatment effects declines precisely with the quantity that identifies the novel treatment effects. A demonstration of the technique is provided using a cash transfer program in Malawi.
Keywords: Experimental Design, Networks, Cash Transfers
JEL Classification: C93, O22, I25
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation