News

Researchers assessed the impact of financial incentives and peer endorsement on mobile banking adoption and formal savings in Ghana. While financial incentives boosted adoption by 50 percent, peer endorsement was twice as effective, leading to sustained mobile banking use and a 30 percent increase...

Many firms rely on social networks to find potential employees, and to find out more information about them. In Kolkata, India, researchers tested whether using social networks for recruitment was an effective strategy for finding highly qualified candidates in a laboratory setting. They found that...

Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to measure a major preschool construction program underway in Morocco.

Researchers expanded microcredit offerings in Bosnia and Herzegovina to evaluate the effect of improved credit access on economic and social outcomes. They found that providing loans to slightly under-qualified microcredit applicants increased small business ownership, but not income, and decreased...

Researchers investigated whether access to information about local labor laws could improve firms’ understanding of the law. They found that free access to an existing subscription service that provided this information improved firms’ understanding of labor regulations and resulted in large...

In order to assess the effects of online advertising, researchers evaluated the impact of a high volume of Facebook advertising on name recognition and favorability of political candidates. E xposure to Facebook ads did not increase recognition of a candidate’s name or increase positive assessments...

Researchers contacted registered voters in a New England town by telephone and asked a portion of these voters to predict whether or not they would vote. This allowed researchers to use a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of making a prediction about future voting behavior on actual voting...