Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/226237 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 8535
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
We introduce a novel methodology for adaptive targeted experiments. Our Tempered Thompson Algorithm balances the goals of maximizing the precision of treatment effect estimates and maximizing the welfare of experimental participants. A hierarchical Bayesian model allows us to adaptively target treatments at different groups. We implement our methodology in a field experiment. We examine the impact of three interventions designed to improve formal employment outcomes of Syrian refugees and local jobseekers in Jordan: one treatment to address liquidity constraints, one to address information frictions, and one to address challenges of self-control. Six weeks after being offered treatment, none of the interventions has a significant or meaningful impact on the probability that individuals are in wage employment; we estimate that our targeting algorithm had a positive but small effect on aggregate employment (approximately 1 percentage point). However, we find large employment effects of all treatments for refugees at the two-month follow-up, and suggestive evidence of four-month impacts for the cash grant; liquidity appears to be a key barrier to employment for refugees.
Subjects: 
adaptive experiments
refugees
job search
JEL: 
C93
J60
O15
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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