Fwiw, the 50% loss rate isn’t that different from the Roessler paper, which still found effects in spite of the losses/sales/breakage (see pg. 9).
“As expected, by endline self-reported phone ownership in the treatment conditions far outpaced control (72% in the pooled phone conditions to 27%) but also revealing the attenuating effects of handset turnover. Pinning down the exact mechanisms that account for handset loss among those in the phone groups is challenging because of survey demand effects.11 We could, however, verify whether participants had the program handset on their person during the endline survey: while 50.7% of those in the basic group still had the basic handset, only 34.2% in the smartphone group did. Below we refer to subjects displaying the project phone at endline as compliers.”
Fwiw, the 50% loss rate isn’t that different from the Roessler paper, which still found effects in spite of the losses/sales/breakage (see pg. 9).
“As expected, by endline self-reported phone ownership in the treatment conditions far outpaced control (72% in the pooled phone conditions to 27%) but also revealing the attenuating effects of handset turnover. Pinning down the exact mechanisms that account for handset loss among those in the phone groups is challenging because of survey demand effects.11 We could, however, verify whether participants had the program handset on their person during the endline survey: while 50.7% of those in the basic group still had the basic handset, only 34.2% in the smartphone group did. Below we refer to subjects displaying the project phone at endline as compliers.”