Blog

News

Browse news articles about J-PAL and our affiliated professors, and read our press releases and monthly global and research newsletters. For media inquiries, please email us.

Interest Rates, Loan Maturity and Demand for Microfinance Loans in South Africa

Researchers tested the assumption of price inelastic demand using a randomized evaluation in South Africa. The results suggest that the demand curves were downward sloping, and steeper for price increases relative to the lender’s standard rates. Researchers also found that loan size was far more...

Boosting Firms’ Productivity in Mexico with Consulting Services

In Mexico, researchers are testing whether this lagging productivity could be due to lower managerial capacity. They found that providing subsidized managerial consulting to Mexican SMEs boosted their productivity and hiring.

Safe Spaces with Vocational and Life Skills Training for Young Women's Economic and Social Empowerment in Uganda

In Uganda, researchers examined the impact of a combination of life skills and vocational training on adolescent girls’ engagement in income-generating activities, control over their bodies, and aspirations. The bundled provision of hard vocational and soft life skills training led to substantial...

Advertising Higher Earnings during Recruitment Processes for Community Service Providers in Uganda

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of expected earnings on candidates’ perception of a community health worker position in Uganda, and on the resulting size and composition of the applicant pool. Fewer socially motivated participants applied when advertised wages were...

Promoting Handwashing Behavior in Peru: The Effects of Large-Scale Community and School-Level Interventions

Researchers evaluated the impact of a large-scale handwashing intervention in Peru that introduced an innovative mix of mass media campaigns along with more intensive community activities, including educational sessions for caregivers and a handwashing curriculum in some schools. The program was...

Discrimination in Hiring and Anonymous CVs in France (CV Anonymes)

In collaboration with the French employment agency Pôle Emploi, researchers evaluated whether interview and hiring rates of minority candidates changed when employers collect anonymous resumes. Making resumes anonymous did not affect the average number of interviews and job offers volunteer firms...

Providing Endowments to Improve Bargaining Outcomes for Microentrepreneurs in Ghana

Gisella Kagy
Lena Song
Researchers randomly provided more or less cash to garment-making firm owners in Ghana before a bargaining game to evaluate the impact of endowment on the negotiated sale price of a good. Owners of garment-making microenterprises with lower household liquidity agreed to lower sale prices during the...