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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.

Text message reminders decreased failure to appear in court in New York City

Researchers partnered with policymakers in New York City to evaluate the impacts of a redesigned court summons form and text message reminders on failure to appear (FTA) in court. A randomized evaluation found that text message reminders were able to reduce FTA by up to 26 percent, translating to 3...

Cash and In-kind Transfers to Increase Profits of Microenterprises in Ghana

Microenterprises often struggle to survive and grow after their initial start-up. A key issue for policymakers is understanding how to best encourage the survival and growth of resource-constrained firms by using policy tools like unrestricted cash grants and conditional transfers of materials or...

The Effects of Performance Pay among Private School Teachers in Pakistan

Researchers worked with a large private school network in Pakistan to evaluate the effects of performance raises on outcomes such as teacher behavior, student learning, and student socioemotional development. They found that, compared to flat payments, performance pay attracted more high-quality...

Local Mentorship and Business Training to Increase Profits among Microenterprises in Kenya

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of two different types of business training—formal business classes and mentorship from a successful entrepreneur in the same industry—on female entrepreneurs’ profits and use of new business practices in Kenya. They found that...

Information Campaigns to Increase Mobile Banking Adoption in Ghana

In Ghana, researchers worked with a bank that provides services to low-income customers with limited access to mainstream banking to evaluate the impact of sending pre-recorded informational voice calls and text messages on the adoption of mobile banking. Clients that received messages encouraging...

Improving Labor Courts through Competition in Mexico

Researchers are partnering with the Mexico City Labor Court to evaluate whether rotating court notifiers across areas and casefiles can reduce incidences of bribery, increase the notification rates, and improve the functioning of labor courts.

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...

Impacts of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs on Voting in Honduras

In this randomized evaluation in Honduras, researchers assessed how the national Programa de Asignación Familiar (Family Allowance Program) CCT program, which provided a combination of transfers to households and transfers to support public goods, influenced voting in local and national elections...