Proposing a Compensation Requirement for Audit Studies

We examine compensation as a tool to encourage the thoughtful use of audit experimentation. If researchers had to compensate subjects or communities, they would be more likely to avoid excessively large studies and to only conduct high-value studies. We build on Desposato and propose that when conducting an audit study, (1) researchers donate time or money to the communities potentially affected by the study, (2) researchers preregister this donation, and (3) researchers provide evidence of the donation they made in publication and presentation.