News

Researchers partnered with a water company in Zambia to evaluate whether improved information and incentives can help households manage their water usage. They found that targeting incentives to higher household water consumers might be an effective way to reduce water consumption.

In this randomized evaluation in Romania, researchers compared the roles of preferences and information in households’ decision-making, with regard to high school selection. Results suggest that households provided with information on school quality tend to choose schools that have a greater...

Researchers partnered with banks in three countries to see if removing the costs to opening basic bank accounts would lead to more households opening and using bank accounts. Overall, use of the accounts was low across all three countries, and being offered a free, basic bank account had no impact...

In Tanzania, researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the impact of factory employment and different compensation schemes on gender differences in labor market outcomes, taste for competition, and views on social and gender norms.

Despite the initial promise of microcredit, randomized evaluations have found at best modest effects of microloans on poverty. Digitized payments from government cash transfer programs provide a unique opportunity to offer microcredit while addressing some of its shortcomings, potentially reducing...

Researchers studied the impact of a clinical decision support software system on high-cost imaging orders. They found that clinical decision support reduced the number of high-cost scans targeted by the software but did not change the total number of high-cost scans ordered.

Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation testing the impact of monthly cash transfers of $1,000 to low-income individuals in Texas and Illinois on household expenditures, debts and assets, and financial health. The study found that receiving the cash transfer increased spending by $310 per...

Researchers examined the impact of race concordance (when the race of a patient matches that of their physician) and incentives on the take-up of preventive health services by Black men. Results indicate that physician race concordance significantly boosted demand for all preventive health services...