Blog

News

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.

Financial Training for Mineworkers in South Africa

Jeremy Shapiro
Financial access in South Africa has expanded rapidly in recent years and policymakers have identified financial education as a means to improve financial literacy and inclusion. To test this, researchers evaluated the impact of a financial literacy workshop on miners’ financial understanding...

Using Media to Change Norms and Behaviors in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation in Rwanda to examine how important aspects of cultural practice do or do not change in the wake of exposure to media messages delivered through a radio soap opera drama. While the radio program had little effect on changing individual beliefs and...

The Effect of Prepaid Postage on Voter Turnout in the United States

Andrew Healy
Neil Malhotra
Melissa Michelson
Allison Carnegie Sovey
Ali Adam Valenzuela
Researchers randomly provided postage-paid envelopes to a subset of permanent absentee voters in San Mateo County, California in order to evaluate its impact on voter turnout. The provision of prepaid postage resulted in no net change in voter turnout because it simultaneously decreased the number...

India’s Happiness Curriculum to Improve Youth Mental Health, Learning, and Development

Avinash Moorthy
Researchers are examining the impact of a socioemotional learning curriculum on student mental health, academic achievement, and other social outcomes.

Powering Small Retailers: The Adoption of Solar Energy under Different Pricing Schemes in Kenya

Kenya, East Africa's largest economy, is struggling with an ageing energy infrastructure and low connectivity to the power grid. William Jack and affiliate Tavneet Suri (MIT) study the impact of off-grid solar power on small retailers in Nairobi.

The Impact of Broadening Traditional Leaders’ Advisors on Inclusive Governance in Zimbabwe

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test how encouraging traditional leaders to broaden their circle of advisors affects inclusive governance in Zimbabwe. Village chiefs improved their decision-making processes when they attended the workshop on inclusive and transparent governance and...

Certification, Teacher Effectiveness, and Student Learning in the United States

Steven Cantrell
Jon Fullerton
Certified teachers were no more likely than non-applicants to be effective at improving students’ test scores, but were more effective than unsuccessful applicants. Researchers found that estimates of teacher effectiveness based on test scores from previous years were a strong predictor of student...