Identifying communication spillovers in lab-in-the-field experiments
利用卢旺达147个村庄公共品博弈实验的数据，通过事后匹配有/无沟通机会的村庄，发现沟通显著提高了合作水平，表明未预期的溢出效应可能影响推断。
Use of lab-in-the-field experiments has steadily increased, given benefits of studying relevant populations and their preferences. In the field, researchers must often relinquish the control of a standard laboratory, raising the specter of communication from past to future participants. Little is known about the consequences of such spillovers, and recent literature indicates variation in how authors deal with them. I provide estimates of communication spillovers using existing data from public goods games in Rwanda, leveraging variation in planning the sequence of visiting 147 villages. The resulting order created opportunities for some villages to communicate with past participants. Using ex-post matching of villages with and without these opportunities I find that communication led to substantial increases in cooperation, suggesting that unanticipated spillovers can bias inference. I conclude with advice for creating protocols to deal with communication spillovers.