News

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in Colombia to assess the effects of emergency cash assistance on the well-being of households. Recipients of the UCT experienced improved financial health, food access, and psychological well-being. Colombia’s newly implemented mobile money system...

Across six randomized evaluations, researchers studied the impact of low-cost, low-touch informational interventions, or “nudges,” on take-up of the federal and state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in California. None of the interventions had an impact on EITC take-up, suggesting that information...

In low- to middle-income countries around the world, nearly one billion people lived in urban informal settlements as of 2018. Rapid urbanization in most large African cities has led to both more people and a higher proportion of people living in informal settlements over time. Researchers conducted...

Colombia used lotteries to distribute vouchers which partially covered the cost of private secondary school for students who maintained satisfactory academic progress. Three years after the lotteries, winners were about 10 percentage points more likely to have finished 8th grade, primarily because...

Researchers studied the impact a quota system which randomly assigned villages in India to reserve village council positions for women. They found that quotas improved voters’ perceptions of the effectiveness of women as leaders and subsequently improved women’s electoral chances.

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...

Researchers partnered with Banco Agrícola to conduct a randomized evaluation that offered a way for Salvadoran migrants to directly channel some fraction of their remittances into savings accounts in El Salvador. Results indicate that a desire for control over remittance uses—in particular the...