Target Beneficiary Identification via Lottery Protocol
RCTClinical Trial
Migrants often send money to multiple individuals across extended social networks, making it difficult for researchers to objectively determine which recipient household is most central to the migrant's primary financial and welfare goals.
Picture this
Imagine asking someone to choose one family member to receive a $500 jackpot if their name is drawn from a hat. The person they name reveals who matters most to their financial planning, giving researchers a clear target for follow-up interviews.
What the evidence says
Successfully identified key target household respondents—48% parents, 20% siblings, 10% spouses, and 12% children [5]—establishing paired migrant-household linkages for 1,377 households at endline [3].
- Who was studied
- 4,458 Filipino migrants naming target beneficiaries in the Philippines, resulting in 2,075 target household endline surveys [3].
- How
- Administration of a $500 lottery prize nomination protocol in the baseline survey to identify the "target beneficiary" and paired "target household" for endline evaluation [4].
What to do
Use conditional prize nomination protocols during baseline migrant surveys to objectively pinpoint primary recipient households for downstream evaluation.
From the source
"To identify which corresponding household in the Philippines we should interview, the migrant participants were asked to name (and provide contact information for) an individual in the Philippines who would be the recipient of a US$500 lottery prize... The study participant's choice identifies an individual (referred to as the 'target beneficiary') and household... whose well-being is important to the study participant."
A Field Experiment among Filipino Migrant Workers in the UAE