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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.

Visualizing Future Benefits to Increase Preventive Health Investment, Savings, and Labor Supply in Kenya

Anett John
Researchers evaluated the impact of light-touch psychological interventions on health and economic outcomes, with a particular focus on the chlorination of drinking water. After twelve weeks, visualizing the future increased objectively measured chlorination; it also reduced diarrhea episodes among...

Discrimination in the Job Market in the United States

Researchers examined the level of racial discrimination in the United States labor market by randomly assigning identical résumés black-sounding or white-sounding names and observing the impact on requests for interviews from employers. Results found that résumés with white-sounding names received...

Project Generasi: Conditional Community Block Grants in Indonesia

Junko Onishi
Susan Wong
Researchers partnered with the Government of Indonesia to evaluate the impact of community block grants and the additional effect of performance incentives. They found that community block grants improved health and education in Indonesian villages, and adding performance incentives sped up...

Graduating the Ultra-Poor in Peru

Bram Thuysbaert
Researchers evaluated a multi-faceted approach aimed at improving long term income of the ultra-poor in Peru. They found that the approach had long-lasting economic and self-employment impacts and that the long-run benefits, measured in terms of household expenditures, outweighed their up-front...

School Libraries and Language Skills in Indian Primary Schools: A Randomized Evaluation of the Akshara Library Program

Evan Borkum
Fang He
Researchers partnered with the Akshara Foundation in Bangalore, India to evaluate the impact of hiring trained librarians in primary schools on students’ academic achievement. Overall, the intervention had little effect on students' language, math, and science skills and had no impact on student...

Moving to Opportunity or Isolation? Network Effects of a Slum Relocation Program in India

Sharon Barnhardt
To test this theory, researchers examined results of a housing lottery to measure the impact of relocation on slum residents. They found that offering subsidized suburban housing resulted in neither comprehensive take-up nor higher family income, suggesting that the benefits of improved housing were...

Impacts of Flexible Loans on Borrower Behavior and Microenterprise Outcomes in Colombia

Lasse Brune
Xavier Giné
Researchers evaluated the impact of a flexible microloan product on new clients' repayment behavior, business outcomes, and client satisfaction. The results showed that the flexible loan led to some shifts in investment behavior but had no average impact on revenue or profits and led to higher...

Text Message Loan Repayment Reminders for Micro-Borrowers in the Philippines

In “the text message capital of the world,” the Philippines, researchers tested the effect of text message reminders on client repayment rates. In contrast with previous research, they found that text message reminders did not increase repayment on average. Yet for repeat borrowers, who had known...