Civil society groups emphasize the need for high quality public information on the performance of politicians. But, does information really make a difference in institutionally weak environments? Does it lead to the rewarding of good performance at the polls or are voting decisions going to be dominated by ethnic ties and clientelistic relations? The Information and Accountability Metaketa seeks to answer these questions by implementing a series of experimental projects that assess the role of information in promoting political accountability in developing countries.
This Metaketa round was launched in Fall 2013 and will run over the next four years. This round awarded seven projects—one each in Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, India, and Mexico, and two in Uganda—ranging in funding from $175,000 to $300,000. All of the projects use common informational interventions to assess the impact of providing voters with information about politician performance. In addition, each involve at least one complementary intervention. In this round, many projects compare the effects of providing information to individual voters (first arm) with the effects of providing information collectively to groups of voters (second arm). See the initial Expression of Interest and Request for Proposals for more information.
For additional information about the Metaketa Initiative, contact Jaclyn Leaver (EGAP Director of Research) at jleaver@berkeley.edu.
Metaketa I Steering Committee: Thad Dunning (chair, UC Berkeley); Guy Grossman (U Penn); Macartan Humphreys (Columbia University); Susan Hyde (UC Berkeley); and Craig McIntosh (UCSD)
Metaketa I Pre-meta-analysis Plan: 20150309AA
Metaketa I Projects
Can Common Knowledge Improve Common Goods?
Principal Investigators: Claire Adida, Jessica Gottlieb, Eric Kramon, Gwyneth McClendon
