News

Researchers in Chile compared the effects of self-help peer groups and text-message feedback on entrepreneurs’ ability to make regular deposits into a savings account. Receiving feedback by text message increased savings by almost as much as being a member of a self-help group, suggesting that the...

Researchers examined the impact of door-to-door canvassing on voter turnout in the 2001 local elections in six US cities. The results indicate that voters who were contacted by canvassers were significantly more likely to vote in a wide variety of settings.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of offering interest-paying mobile money saving accounts to farmers, and in some cases farmers’ friends, on their financial behavior such as agricultural investment. Providing farmers access to interest-bearing mobile savings accounts...

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of employment on refugee psychosocial well-being in Bangladesh. The study found that employment generated significant psychosocial value beyond that from cash transfers alone.

Despite expanding access to sanitary options such as community toilets, many individuals, especially in urban slums, continue to practice open defecation. One potential explanation is that open defecation has become an ingrained habit. Applying lessons from psychology and neuroscience, researchers...

Labor movements can improve workers’ lives but face great difficulty in getting workers to agree on common goals and take collective actions. In garment factory workers’ group discussions on minimum wage policies in Myanmar, researchers randomly included union leaders to study whether the presence...

During periods of high electricity use that strain the grid, electricity customers do not have any reason to conserve because they pay a fixed price per kilowatt hour of power. In this study, the researcher evaluated the impact on electricity usage of a real-time pricing scheme, which charges...