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In Nigeria, researchers worked with a financial service provider to evaluate the impact of digital loans on welfare. Being approved for the loans increased subjective well-being after three months, for applicants who normally would have been denied.

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...

Researchers evaluated the effects of an information campaign on workers’ awareness of and participation in a program that subsidizes skills-building training in Germany. Results showed that the information campaign doubled workers’ awareness of the program on average, but had no effects on program...

Researchers tested whether sharing messages that appealed to negative emotions, like shame or disgust, increased households’ hand washing behavior and willingness to pay for water chlorination in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Negative messaging had no impact on chlorination levels or willingness to pay, but...

Underprivileged students in the Dominican Republic face a series of barriers to access post-secondary education. Despite existing scholarship programs, application rates for financial aid offered by the government are extremely low, and poor and rural students are much less likely to apply for and...

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a video-mediated extension approach on the uptake of technologies recommended by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture. The video-mediated instruction increased uptake through improved access to extension and farmer knowledge but...

In partnership with the Kasai Central Provincial Tax Ministry in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the researcher conducted a randomized evaluation to identify the direct and indirect effects of varying levels of enforcement on firms’ tax compliance and their likelihood to pay bribes.

Researchers in Ghana conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether a program informing students and parents about the secondary school choice process and school quality helped students make more strategic decisions about which schools to attend, and whether these choices led to better...