Institution profile
UC Berkeley
Berkeley researchers across economics, public health, and the Goldman School of Public Policy have contributed trials on tax, environment, and labor.
3
Experiments
1998–2016
Year span
3 / 3
Positive findings
0
Null findings
Top policy areas
- Basic Income · 1
- Energy & Environment · 1
- Financial Services · 1
Experiments from UC Berkeley
- Positive
GiveDirectly — Large-Scale Basic Income in Rural Kenya
GiveDirectly / Princeton / MIT / UC Berkeley · Siaya County, Kenya · 2016 · Basic Income
Effect: Consumption: +30% vs. baseline; assets: +40% in asset values; food security: significantly improved; psychological wellbeing: large positive effects on stress and happiness; hours worked: no reduction; local economic spillovers: significant — control villages within treated areas also showed consumption increases (~$2.50 for every $1 transferred, via multiplier effects)
- Positive
Solar Panel Adoption Peer Effects
Yale University / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · Connecticut, United States · 2014 · Energy & Environment
Effect: Each additional installation within 0.5 miles raises probability of neighbor adoption by 0.78 percentage points; effect concentrated within 0.5 miles and decays with distance
- Positive
401(k) Auto-Enrollment and Save More Tomorrow
University of Chicago / University of California Berkeley · Multiple US companies · 1998 · Financial Services
Effect: (1) Auto-enrollment: participation rate jumped from 49% to 86% within 3 months of hire; at 3–15 months, 86% of auto-enrolled workers still enrolled (vs. 65% who would have actively opted in). (2) SMarT: workers who joined pre-committed their savings rate from 3.5% to 13.6% over four plan-raise cycles — nearly quadrupling their savings rate vs. those who declined.