Date created: 2025-01-12 04:12 PM | Last Updated: 2025-03-01 09:40 AM

Category: Project

Description: This is a reproduction of a paper published at AEJ Applied Economics. This is part of our investigation of GDRI. Our full reproduction is available below. Our replication package is also provided. Original authors did not agree on a response. Some released separate statements, which are available below. As requested, we note that “the other authors are currently working on a detailed response to each of the reports.” They also provided a short response: "After reviewing your findings, we consulted with our coauthors and the field manager from our partner organization in Bangladesh. Regarding the main point about the purported “coding error” concerning the PSS and CESD measures, we can confirm that the relevant PSS and CESD items that are meant to be reverse-coded, were collected in reverse order in the second endline and therefore did not require additional reversing. The decision to reverse these items during the second endline data collection was based on feedback from enumerators during the piloting phase of the 10-month endline questionnaire. Enumerators noted that respondents found it difficult to alternate between positively and negatively framed mental health questions during phone interviews conducted under lockdown conditions. To address this, the field team instructed enumerators to administer the questions in a way that eliminated the need for subsequent reversing of the answers. However, we recognize that this procedural detail was inadvertently omitted in Appendix B of the paper (Section B.2) and the replication readme file. We sincerely appreciate your report, as it helped us identify this issue, and we will ensure that the relevant documentation is promptly updated to reflect this adjustment." We address this response in our report (Section 3.3.).