Evaluations

Policy Publications

Search our database of policy briefcases, bulletins, and evidence reviews. Briefcases summarize the results and policy recommendations from one randomized evaluation, while bulletins synthesize the broader policy lessons emerging from multiple evaluations on the same topic. Evidence reviews summarize an existing academic literature review, like a handbook chapter or white paper, for a policy audience.

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Latest Findings from Randomized Evaluations of Microfinance

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Diciembre 1, 2011
Recent evidence from randomized studies of microfinance indicate that poor people face various limits in their ability to capitalize on financial opportunities. Product design matters, and inexpensive design tweaks may help the poor to benefit more from financial products and services.

Incentives for Immunization

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Octubre 31, 2011
Small incentives for parents, coupled with reliable services at convenient mobile clinics, increased full immunization rates sixfold. This approach was twice as cost-effective as improving service reliability without incentives.

A Well-Timed Nudge

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Octubre 1, 2011
Enabling farmers to prepay for fertilizer when they had cash on hand was effective in promoting fertilizer adoption.

Know Your Status?

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Agosto 31, 2011
Even very small incentives can encourage people to return for their HIV test results. However, for most people, learning status did not substantially change the number of condoms they purchased.

Fingerprinting to Reduce Risky Borrowing

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Julio 26, 2011
Introducing fingerprinting identification for microloans caused high-risk borrowers to take out smaller loans and to improve their repayment behavior.

Menstruation as a Barrier to Education?

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Junio 1, 2011
Girls in Nepal missed only half a day of school per year due to menstruation, and modern sanitary products did little to address this very small attendance gap.

Why Aren't Children Learning?

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Septiembre 1, 2011
The problem is that the children are in school, but they are not learning.

Absenteeism: Showing Up is the First Step

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Noviembre 16, 2009
A range of studies have examined alternative ways to reform health and education systems and address what is perhaps the most important failure in these systems. No simple answer emerges but some general lessons do stand out.

Solving Absenteeism, Raising Test Scores

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Septiembre 1, 2008
On an average day in rural Udaipur, India, 44% of teachers are absent from school. While Udaipur’s problem was especially severe, teacher absence is all too typical of schools in poor countries. This briefcase summarizes the implications from the evaluation of one highly successful program to reduce...