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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.

Improving Measurement of Farmers Skills in Western Kenya

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in western Kenya to test how farmer participation in agronomic trials impacted their experimentation on their own farms with different input combinations and impacted their use of high-quality inputs, yields, adoption of new crops, and profitability...

Sensitivity to Interest Rates and Account Ownership Requirements for a Commitment Savings Account in the Philippines

Researchers worked with First Valley Bank in the Philippines to evaluate the impact of varying the interest rate and account ownership requirements on demand for commitment savings accounts. While savings account take-up was 23 percent, neither the interest rates nor the ownership requirements...

The Impact of a Tax Holiday Lottery in Uruguay

Felipe Monestier
Rafael Piñeiro
Fernando Rosenblatt
Guadalupe Tuñón
Researchers tested in the case of Montevideo, Uruguay the impact of winning a tax holiday on subsequent tax compliance. Winners of the tax holiday lottery were 3 percentage points less likely to pay taxes in subsequent payment cycles, likely because the holiday disrupted the habit of tax paying, and...

The Impact of a Gender-Transformative Participatory Intervention on Intimate Partner Violence and HIV Risk Behaviors in Ethiopia

Vandana Sharma
Fabio Verani
Researchers evaluated the effect of a gender-transformative skills-building program on IPV incidence, HIV risk behaviors, and other health outcomes in rural Ethiopia. Overall, the program led to reductions in IPV when delivered to groups of men, but not when delivered to couples or to women only...

The Impact of Poverty Reduction on Child Health, Nutrition, and Sleep in the United States

Nathan Fox
Sarah Halpern-Meekin
Emma Hart
Alicia Kunin-Batson
Katherine Magnuson
Kimberly Noble
Jessica Sperber
Hiro Yoshikawa
To understand the causal impact of poverty reduction on children’s health, nutrition, sleep, and healthcare utilization, among other outcomes, researchers randomly assigned new mothers to receive an unconditional cash transfer of $333 (high-cash group) or $20 per month (low-cash group) in the Baby’s...

The Profitability of Fertilizer in Mali

Researchers randomly provided free fertilizer to women rice farmers in southern Mali to measure how farmers chose to use the fertilizer, what changes they made to their agricultural practices, and the profitability of these changes. The fertilizer grants led to increased fertilizer use, use of...

Increasing Public Transportation for Higher Employment and Women's Empowerment in Pakistan

Hadia Majid
Ammar Malik
Kate Vyborny
Researchers are partnering with Lahore Transport Company (LTC), the public vehicle operation regulator, to introduce routes for small vehicles, known as wagons, that feed into a bus rapid transit system and will reserve a portion of wagons for women only. Researchers will evaluate the impact of...

Reducing the Incidence of Vote Buying in Uganda

During the 2016 Ugandan elections, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of an anti-vote-buying campaign to study voter behavior and electoral outcomes. Overall, the campaign did not reduce the extent of vote buying, but it had substantial effects on electoral outcomes.