News

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test disbursing microfinance loans through digital accounts on business outcomes in Uganda. Women who received their loan through a digital account experienced higher business capital and profits compared to those who received their loans via cash.

For-profit (and often online) universities account for nearly half of all postsecondary growth over the last decade, yet relatively little is known about how employers value and compare these education types. To test this, researchers randomly submitted resumes with different characteristics and...

To evaluate the demand for solar electricity, researchers randomly offered solar microgrid connections at different prices to households in rural areas of Bihar, India. Demand for microgrids was highly variable and low when they were offered at market price, likely because there were several other...

Researchers used data on lottery winners in Sweden to determine whether receiving an influx of cash affected the labor supply decisions of winners and their spouses. They found that lottery winners reduced their labor supply, suggesting that cash transfers can have an effect on labor market outcomes...

Identifying and training effective managers is crucial for improving both firm productivity and worker well-being. Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of different combinations of managerial screening and training tools on business and worker well-being outcomes.

In this study, researchers evaluated scalable methods to improve student retention and performance in an online course, with the goal of improving meaningful access to this resource.

In rural India, researchers are testing whether helping women access public employment and receive wages through direct deposit into individual bank accounts can increase their chances of being employed, their control over earnings, and ultimately their family planning decisions.

Researchers evaluated an accountability workshop program, which educated citizens on the distribution of extractive industry tax revenues and the formal means of local political participation. The program had mixed results on local government quality, increasing the likelihood of initiating recall...