News

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of offering subsidies to connect to the power grid on the demand for rural electrification in Kenya. The study finds that demand falls rapidly as connection price increases, and that supply costs are very high.

Researchers evaluated the impact on educational outcomes of providing enhanced vision services to low-income elementary school children. Providing vision screening and free eyeglasses significantly increased achievement in two of the three districts studied, while screening without the provision of...

In Ethiopia, researchers randomly assigned mostly female jobseekers to receive an industrial job offer or an unconditional cash transfer, meant to spur self-employment. While they found positive impacts of the cash transfers on occupational choice, income, and health in the first year, these effects...

Understanding the factors that influence voting behavior is a central policy issue. Often voting outcomes directly determine funding of critical public goods such as public education.

Those self-employed in microenterprises, who often report low profits and own few assets, account for fifty percent of the labor force in low-income countries. Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the effect of relieving constraints to microenterprise relocation on business...

Researchers in Kenya conducted multiple lab studies at the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics to explore the degree of ethnic bias in the local population and assess how bias may affect participants’ behavior. Contrary to existing assumptions about ethnic preferences in Kenya, researchers found...

The researcher evaluated the impact of a sexual harassment training on the incidence of sexual harassment, opposite sex relationships, and attitudes and beliefs towards sexual harassment in India. Overall, the training reduced extreme forms of sexual harassment in the short run and intermediate...