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.

Auditing Schools' Responsiveness to Students with Disabilities in Districts of Choice

Researchers sent emails to schools posing as parents of students with randomly-varied characteristics to assess if schools responded differently to different types of students. The researchers found that on average both charter and traditional public schools were less likely to respond to students...

Raising Awareness about Job Training in Germany

Christine Dauth
Pia Homrighausen
Gesine Stephan
Researchers evaluated the effects of an information campaign on workers’ awareness of and participation in a program that subsidizes skills-building training in Germany. Results showed that the information campaign doubled workers’ awareness of the program on average, but had no effects on program...

Financial Aid and College Access in the Dominican Republic

Juan Ariel Jimenez
Sebastián Otero
Underprivileged students in the Dominican Republic face a series of barriers to access post-secondary education. Despite existing scholarship programs, application rates for financial aid offered by the government are extremely low, and poor and rural students are much less likely to apply for and...

The Impact of Exposure to Discordant Media on Political Polarization in Turkey

Ahmet Akbiyik
Jeremy Bowles
Researchers evaluated the impact of exposure to and incentives to consume discordant media on political attitudes and behaviors in Turkey. Participants changed their media consumption habits, trusted discordant media sources more, and had less polarized attitudes towards the government, but did not...

Improving tax compliance through enforcement campaigns in the Democratic Republic of Congo

In partnership with the Kasai Central Provincial Tax Ministry in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the researcher conducted a randomized evaluation to identify the direct and indirect effects of varying levels of enforcement on firms’ tax compliance and their likelihood to pay bribes.

Community Service Grants to Foster Social and Economic Integration for Youth in Kazakhstan

In Kazakhstan, researchers tested whether offering youth community service grants and training impacted their level of community engagement, pro-social behavior, life skills, and labor market outcomes. Engaging youth in civic service and/or training had little to no effect on these outcomes one-year...

The Impact of Informational Interventions about Police Alternatives on Police Reliance in the United States

Meghna Baskar
Tony Cheng
Rei Mariman
Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of providing information about police alternatives on individuals' reported likelihood of calling the police and a follow-up randomized evaluation to understand key public-safety stakeholders’ receptiveness of police alternatives. The...

Revealing Stereotypes about Immigrant Students to Middle School Teachers in Italy

Researchers evaluated the impact of informing middle school teachers in Italy about their implicit stereotypes towards immigrant students on end-of-year grading. Both math and literature teachers eligible to receive feedback before the end-of-the-year grading gave higher grades to immigrant students...