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Video-Based and In-person Extension Services to Increase Agricultural Technology Adoption in Ethiopia

Adrien Bouguen
Denise Hörner
Meike Wollni
Researchers randomly evaluated the effects of a decentralized extension program and an additional video-based information campaign on farmers’ adoption of a package of integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) technologies as well as individual practices in Ethiopia. They found that both in-person...

Benchmarking Cash to an Employment Program in Rwanda

In Rwanda, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to compare the impact of Huguka Dukore, a youth employment and training program, to that of cash grants of an equivalent value on several economic outcomes. Huguka Dukore improved hours worked, assets, savings, and subjective well-being, while...

Testing Legislator Responsiveness to Citizens and Firms in the Vietnamese National Assembly

Responsive governments have the ability to make laws and decisions that reflect their constituents’ preferences. However, legislators may lack necessary information about constituents’ opinions and may therefore be unable to meet their demands. Researchers measured whether providing targeted...

Impact of Recruiting Services on Firms' Job Postings and Hiring in France

Dylan Glover
Researchers in France studied whether government-provided recruiting services would impact firms’ job postings and hiring by lowering recruiting costs. The recruiting services decreased firms’ hiring costs and increased firms’ job postings and hiring, including much sought-after permanent-contract...

Community Driven Development in the Philippines

Amanda Beatty
Ariel BenYishay
Elisabeth King
Aniceto Orbeta
Community-based approaches to development, also called community-driven development (CDD), seek to empower local communities to identify and implement the projects they most need. Researchers evaluated the impact of a national community-driven development program in the Philippines on governance...

Flipcharts, School Inputs, and Retrospective versus Prospective Analyses in Kenya

Sylvie Moulin
Eric Zitzewitz
Researchers provided educational flipcharts to 89 randomly selected Kenyan primary schools and evaluated their impact on student learning, comparing retrospective and prospective estimates. In the prospective study, the estimated impact of flipcharts on student test scores was found to be close to...

Influencing the Provision of Social Services through Mandated Female Representation in Policymaking in India

Researchers studied the policy consequences of mandated representation of female policymakers by determining whether there was any difference in the provision of social services between male- and female-led village councils. Results suggest that reservations for female leaders affected policy...