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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.

The Impact of Emergency Cash Assistance in a Pandemic

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...

Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital among Female Micro-entrepreneurs

Researchers re-examined data from previous studies in Ghana, India, and Sri Lanka to better understand the impact of credit and cash grant variations on micro-enterprise profits. Their results suggest that the gender gap in micro-enterprise performance was not due to ability, but rather to women’s...

Increasing Take-Up of the Earned Income Tax Credit

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...

Divided Payment Schedules to Reduce Regretful Spending in Uganda

In Uganda, where most employees receive their wages in a single monthly payment, researchers are working to evaluate if an alternative, divided payment schedule reduces regretful spending.

Learning beyond school: the impact of a remedial learning and literacy program on out-of-school girls in Pakistan

This project used a randomized evaluation to study the effect of a learning program targeting adolescent girls on their education, aspirations, and empowerment.

Increasing Tuberculosis Detection through Incentivized Peer Referrals in India

Chintagunta
Mario Macis
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of peer referrals by current patients on the screening and identification of tuberculosis cases in India. Peer referrals and outreach by current patients to identified peers were more effective than health-worker led contact-tracing...

Auditing Schools' Responsiveness to Students with Disabilities in Districts of Choice

Researchers sent emails to schools posing as parents of students with randomly-varied characteristics to assess if schools responded differently to different types of students. The researchers found that on average both charter and traditional public schools were less likely to respond to students...