Search our database of 1,200+ summaries of randomized evaluations conducted by our affiliates in 98 countries. To browse key policy recommendations from a subset of these evaluations, visit the Policy Publications tab above.

Displaying 9-16 of 119
Farmer steers cattle in agriculture field.

Demand for Rainfall Insurance in India

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test how demand for weather insurance responded to different marketing schemes and price discounts. They found that demand was very price sensitive, but that poor understanding of the product, distrust of insurance agents, and liquidity constraints...
An officer conducting document verification for check distribution.

Using Cell Phones to Monitor the Delivery of Government Payments to Farmers in India

Karthik Muralidharan
Paul Niehaus
Sandip Sukhtankar
Jeffrey Weaver
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a cell phone-based monitoring system on the delivery of government-issued payments for farmers in Telangana, India. The system significantly improved the likelihood of farmers ever receiving their payments as well as receiving them...
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Direct and Indirect Effects of Malawi's Public Works Program on Food Security

Kathleen Beegle
Emanuela Galasso
Jessica Goldberg
Researchers worked with the Malawi Social Action Fund to conduct a randomized evaluation of the program’s effect on food security. They found no evidence that the program improved food security, and there were some indications that the program decreased the food security of non-beneficiaries living...
Workers return home after a day of work

Migration Subsidies and Rural Labor Markets in Bangladesh

Agha Akram
Shyamal Chowdhury
Mushfiq Mobarak
Researchers varied the proportion of travel grants offered to landless households in rural villages in Bangladesh to assess the impact of the grants on temporary migration and income during the agricultural lean season—one of the hardest economic times of the year due to drops in food affordability...
Seasonal Migrant workers in Indonesia working in construction in urban environment.

Evaluating Transfer Size in a Conditional Cash Transfer Program for Seasonal Migrants in Indonesia

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a cash transfer program conditional on seasonal migration and an unconditional cash transfer (UCT) program on rural households’ decisions to migrate and migration season earnings in West-Timor, Indonesia. Relative to the UCT, the...
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Household Risk Strategies and Conditional Cash Transfers in Nicaragua

Karen Macours
Patrick Premand
Renos Vakis
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the effect of a basic CCT program, as well as two complementary interventions, on households’ vulnerability to irregular weather patterns. Providing households with vocational training or capital grants to generate non-agricultural income helps...
Market transaction in rural Malawi

Cash Transfers and Market Access to Increase Household Welfare in Rural Liberia and Malawi

Shilpa Aggarwal
Jenny Aker
Dahyeon Jeong
Naresh Kumar
David Park
Jon Robinson
Alan Spearot
In Liberia and Malawi, researchers partnered with Innovations for Poverty Action, GiveDirectly, and USAID to evaluate the impact of an unconditional cash transfer and market access program on food security, spending, income, resilience to health shocks, intimate partner violence, and psychological...
Farmer stands in a field

Using GPS-enabled Cellphones to Monitor Agricultural Extension Agents in Paraguay

Ernesto Dal Bó
Frederico Finan
Nicholas Y. Li
Laura Schechter
Researchers partnered with the Government of Paraguay to measure the impact of a new monitoring technology—GPS-enabled cell phones—on the job performance of agricultural extension agents (AEAs). Overall, cell phones improved AEAs’ performance by increasing the share of farmers visited, and...