|Social Standing|2473|0.03<br>(0.05)<br>0.527|0.05<br>(0.05)<br>0.318|
|---|---|---|---|
|||0.582|0.394|
|||0.09|0.09|
|Sil St|2487|(0.05)|(0.05)|
|oca uppor||0.057†|0.077†|
|||0.114|0.125|
|||-0.05|0.00|
|Sil Chi|2473|(0.05)|(0.05)|
|oca oeson||0.300|0.982|
|||0.361|0.985|

Note: Columns 3 and 4 are obtained from regressions comparing the Personal Initiative and Interpersonal Initiative conditions, respectively, to the control condition. Point estimates represent the effect of each psychosocial intervention condition compared to control in terms of standard deviations (standardized to the control condition). Regressions control for randomization strata, and standard errors are robust.<sup>†</sup> p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001.

**Mediation.** We consider the causal economic impacts of the agency interventions in this mechanism experiment as our primary evidence of mechanisms. However, we also assess correlational support for certain intrapersonal and relational processes measured at endline. We ran mediation models using 1,000 bootstrapped simulations (Tingley et al., 2014) with the subset of intrapersonal and relational variables that showed significant treatment effects from one or both of the Initiative interventions. Table S9 shows the resulting indirect effect estimates for the intrapersonal and relational composite indices.<sup>14</sup>

The results illustrate three main points. First, both intrapersonal processes (e.g., future expectations) and relational processes (e.g., household dynamics) predicted the economic composite index (i.e., business engagement, business performance, and food security), controlling for condition. Second, results are consistent with a model in which the Initiative interventions influenced economic outcomes through intrapersonal outcomes, based on significant indirect effects (IE) on the intrapersonal composite index (IEPI = 0.05, 95% CI [0.01, 0.09], IEII = 0.04, 95% CI [0.01, 0.07]). Specifically, evidence is strongest for the mechanism of raised future expectations, given that this variable showed significant indirect effects for both interventions (IEPI = 0.04, 95% CI [0.01, 0.07], IEII = 0.04, 95% CI [0.01, 0.07]). Third, only in the Interpersonal Initiative intervention was there evidence for relational mechanisms, given a marginally significant indirect effect on the relational composite index (IEII = 0.03, 95% CI [0.00, 0.06], and not in the Personal Initiative intervention (IEPI = 0.01, 95% CI [-0.01, 0.04]). Improved household dynamics (e.g., perceived closeness) was a possible candidate for a mechanism of those measured, given it showed significant treatment effects from the Interpersonal Initiative intervention, and indeed the indirect effect estimate was significant in this condition (IEII = 0.02, 95% CI [0.00, 0.04]) and not in the Personal Initiative condition (IEPI = 0.00, 95% CI [-0.01, 0.02]).

While it is not possible to infer the direction of causality among outcomes given their simultaneous measurement, Fig. 6 shows a pattern of positive treatment effects and correlations

> 14 We used the ‘mediation’ package in R. The indirect effect represents the amount of the treatment effect of the intervention on the economic outcome index that is accounted for by the mediator. Formally, it is the product of the treatment effect on the mediator (“a” path, see Table 2 and Table S9) and the correlation between the mediator and economic outcome index controlling for treatment condition (“b” path, see Table S9). All regressions control for covariates.

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