The Causal Effect of Competition on Prices and Quality: Evidence from a Field Experiment

The authors declare to have no relevant interests related to the research describe in this paper. This research was made possible by the collaboration of the Administradora de Subsidios Sociales of the Dominican Republic and the Inter-American Development Bank. The collaboration placed no constraints on the conclusions of the analysis. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, any of the countries they represent, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. This experiment has been registered with the American Economic Association RCT Registry under number AEARCTR-0000343. We thank Francisca Müller, Juan Sebastian Muñoz, Dario Romero and Dario Salcedo for their excellent project management and research assistance. We are grateful for the very useful comments made by Daron Acemoglu, Alberto Chong, Matthew Gentzkow, Gary Libecap, David McKenzie, James Poterba, Ernesto Schargrodsky, Gustavo Torrens, participants at various seminars, and three anonymous referees. We also thank the valuable collaboration and feedback provided during the early stages of the project by Van Elder Espinal, Mayra Guzman, Carlos Leal and Mario Alberto Sanchez. All errors are our own.

• April 17, 2014
• February 18, 2015
• March 27, 2018