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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.

Election Fraud and Government Legitimacy in Afghanistan

Researchers evaluated the impact of photographic monitoring technology on aggregation fraud and perceptions of government legitimacy during the 2010 parliamentary elections in Afghanistan. The announcement of a new monitoring technology reduced both theft of election materials and vote counts for...

Returns to Information and Temporary Discounts on Remittances for Guatemalan and Salvadoran Migrants in Washington DC

Kate Ambler
Diego Aycinena
Researchers evaluated two programs to explore factors that may influence the amount of remittances people send: a temporary discount on the transaction fee and the provision of information about the returns to education in their home country. While the information about education did not change...

Land Leases to Semi-Nomadic Herders in Peri-Urban Areas of Mongolia

Herders may change their herding practices to better sustain the land if they own rights to it, which could also translate into bigger and healthier animals, and more income for the herders. In this study, carried out near two cities in Mongolia, researchers evaluated the impact of private property...

Rules of Thumb: Providing Timely Financial Management Advice at Scale in India

Researchers evaluated the impact of providing easy-to-remember and easy-to-adopt rules of thumb to microentrepreneurs in India in order to help improve their businesses performance.

The Impact of Commitment Contracts on Workplace Productivity in India

Self-control problems can lead people to fall short of their personal and professional goals, often resulting in lower than desired workplace productivity. Researchers, in partnership with an Indian data entry firm, conducted a randomized evaluation to test whether self-control problems existed in...

The Impact of Contraceptive Subsidies for Individuals in the United States

Jennifer Barber
Lea Bart
Vanessa Dalton
Daniel Eisenberg
Paula Fomby
Vanessa Lang
Alexa Prettyman
In this randomized evaluation, researchers partnered with Planned Parenthood of Michigan to give vouchers for contraception to evaluate the impact of contraceptive costs on method choice. Those who received the vouchers were more likely to buy contraceptives and buy more expensive methods than those...

Information to Increase Insurance Take-up and Reduce Market Risk in the United States

Richard Domurat
Isaac Menashe
Researchers studied the impact of reminder letters addressing possible barriers related to information and behavior on insurance take-up, as well as their impact on health insurance market risk. The reminder letters reducing informational and behavioral barriers to enrollment increased insurance...