Glossary

Policy Tools Used in Studies
Accountability: requires people to report back on their performance or behavior
Aspirations/Goals/Expectations: helps people imagine the future and aspire to better outcomes
Commitment Devices: Provides some mechanism that helps people decide now what they must do in the future
Community Mobilization: Relies on communities or other groups to self-enforce and self-enact changes in their behavior; gives beneficiaries more control over the intervention
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT): Transfers cash to people if they meet established conditions
Conditional Transfers: Transfers money or aid to people if they meet established conditions
Defaults: Makes a socially or personally desirable outcome the default choice so people are more likely to do it
E-products: An electronic product that is used in transactions or giving out information
Feedback: provides an evaluation or information about the behavior or performance of people to increase the likelihood they will learn faster
Financial Products: gives people a financial product they need
Framing: displays information or behavior in different ways to test the best way to frame something
Gender: the researchers manipulate gender in some way during the treatment
Incentives: researchers provide subjects with some type of motivation to complete an action
Identity: appeals to the way that people see themselves in order to get them to change their behavior
Information: seeks to educate people by distributing information without the use of another person
Institutional Rules: Who makes decisions, how they are made, and what these decisions are
Losses/Gains: uses loss aversion, and/or frames outcomes as losses and gains strategically
Mass Media: uses radio, television, social media, newspaper, or some other form of mass media
Participation/Community Mobilization: relies on communities or other groups to self-enforce and self-enact changes in their behavior; gives beneficiaries more control over the intervention
Physical Products: gives people a product they need
Price Variation: Offers goods or services at different prices. Usually done to estimate how demand for a commodity changes depending on its price
Reduce Decisions: reduces the number of choices or options that people have to avoid overwhelming them
Reminders: sends reminders in some form to people to increase the change they follow through
Risk Aversion: Avoiding risks. In investing, this means accepting the lower rate of return but avoiding the higher level of risk
Risk Reduction: Reduces the amount of risk people face in order to help them make more rational decisions
Service Product: gives people a service they need
Social Networks: uses social interactions and/or interpersonal relationships in some way
Social Norms: Acceptable rules of behavior in a group or society
Social Recognition: Publicly acknowledging a person or people for behaving in a certain way
Subsidy: Some part of the cost of a good or service is covered by a third party
Text Messages: uses text messages in some form
Timing/Frequency: varies timing/frequency of treatment
Transaction Cost: Cost incurred in making an exchange of some sort in the economy
Transparency: gives employees ability to get information/give information
Unconditional Transfers: Transfers money or aid to people that haven't met any sort of established standards or requirements
STATISTICAL TERMS
Mean: The average number
Standard Deviation: A measure of how spread out a set of numbers are. It measures how far away on average each number is from the mean
Statistical Significance: A result is statistically significant if the reseracher is over 90% sure that the results obtained were not due to chance. In other words, the results indicate that the effect is explained by the cause
SCHOLARLY RESEARCH TERMS
Abstract: A summary of the contents in an article
Control Group (Comparison Group): The group in an experiment or study which receives no special treatment. This group is then compared to the group which does receive special treatment
Encouragement Randomization: All sample participants have access to the treatment but some individuals or groups are randomly assigned to receive encouragement to get involved in the treatment program
Experimental Group (Treatment Group): The group in an experiment or study which receives some sort of treatment or intervention. This group is then compared to the group which does not receive spcial treatment
Lottery Around Cutoff Randomization: This procedure involves three groups:
  • those who will definitely be accepted into the treatment group
  • those who will not be accepted into the treatment group
  • and those who will have a random chance of being accepted into the treatment group
Lottery Randomization: Units or participants in a study or experiment are randomly assigned to the treatment and control group. This is the default method of random assignment if not otherwise specified
Phase-In Randomization: Everyone will be treated, but random selection will determine who is phased into the treatment first and who receives it later
Random Assignment: The procedure for dividing the sample of participants into the treatment and control groups in a way that each participant has an equally likely chance of being in either kind of group
Random Selection: The procedure for selecting members of a sample group (to be studied) by selecting participants at random so that every member of the population has an equally likely chance of being selected
Rotation Randomization: Sample units or participants are randomly divided into two groups and the groups take turns receiving treatment

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