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Browse news articles about J-PAL and our affiliated professors, and read our press releases and monthly global and research newsletters. For media inquiries, please email us.

The Impact of Offering Pay-as-you-go Car Insurance on Covering Drivers in California

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of introducing a pay-as-you-go car insurance contract, which reduces minimum purchase requirements, to uninsured drivers in California. Applicants who were offered this type of insurance were nearly twice as likely to purchase car...

Performance Incentives for Commercial Bank Loan Officers to Improve Effort on Risk-Assessment and Lending Decisions in India

Martin Kanz
Leora Klapper
Researchers partnered with a commercial bank in India to study the effect of paying loan officers according to the performance of their loans on the quality of their lending decisions. Loan officers working under this incentive scheme exerted greater screening effort, approved fewer loans, and...

Impact of Teaching Firms about Labor Laws on Hiring in South Africa

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...

Do Robotic Calls from Credible Sources Influence Voter Turnout or Vote Choice?

James G. Gimpel
Daron R. Shaw
To test the impact of an automated phone call from a credible source on voters’ preferences and behavior, researchers delivered the message to random voters in two concurrent randomized evaluations. The call did not increase voter turnout or change voter preferences, suggesting that automated phone...

Socio-Emotional Learning for At-Risk Students in Urban Schools in Lima

Ines Kudo
Researchers evaluated the impact of teaching socio-emotional skills to schoolchildren on their emotional well-being, learning, life satisfaction, and long-run labor outcomes.

Cash Transfers’ Effects on Food Consumption in Mexico

Carlos Chiapa
Silvia Prina
Irvin Rojas
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of the anti-poverty cash transfer program, PROSPERA, on food consumption for families living in poverty in Mexico. Households consumed enough food both before and after receiving the cash transfer.

Building Market Linkages for Smallholder Farmers through a Digital Marketplace in Uganda

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in Uganda to test the impact of a mobile phone-based marketplace for agricultural commodities on local market prices, entry of traders, farmer revenue, and trader profits. Overall, the platform increased trade flows and decreased price variation across...

Designing Contracts for Healthcare Providers in India

Katherine Donato
Manoj Mohanan
Yulya Truskinovsky
Researchers evaluated two types of reward contracts—one that rewarded providers for increased use of inputs and one that rewarded providers for improved health outputs—among rural obstetric care providers in India. They found that both contracts reduced post-partum hemorrhage by 20-23 percent.