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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.

The Impact of a Voluntary Summer Reading Program on Low-Income Latinx Children in the United States

James Kim
Researchers examined the impact of a voluntary summer reading program among low-income Latinx children from language minority homes. Results demonstrated that, although children reported reading more books, their reading test scores and the frequency with which they read with parents did not improve...

The Impact of Sexual Harassment Awareness Training on Attitudes and Norms in India

Karmini Sharma
The researcher evaluated the impact of a sexual harassment training on the incidence of sexual harassment, opposite sex relationships, and attitudes and beliefs towards sexual harassment in India. Overall, the training reduced extreme forms of sexual harassment in the short run and intermediate...

Housing Lottery to Increase Demand for Formal Government Housing and Improve Welfare in Ethiopia

In low- to middle-income countries around the world, nearly one billion people lived in urban informal settlements as of 2018. Rapid urbanization in most large African cities has led to both more people and a higher proportion of people living in informal settlements over time. Researchers conducted...

The Impact of Encouraging Mobile Money Use on Women’s Empowerment in Tanzania

Supporting women’s empowerment, the ability for women to control their resources and make their own choices, is a common policy goal both as its own outcome and as a vehicle to drive other change like improving children’s health and education. Many empowerment programs have targeted women’s income...

Enrolling Informal Sector Workers in National Health Insurance in Indonesia

Arianna Ornaghi
Sudarno Sumarto
A key challenge to achieving universal health coverage is that non-poor informal workers are difficult to enroll and retain in government health insurance programs. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of various programs, including subsidies, registration assistance and...

The impact of door-to-door canvassing on voter support and participation in Italy

Enrico Cantoni
Researchers tested whether discussions between candidates and voters can help bridge this gap and increase voter turnout, leveraging a volunteer and candidate canvassing campaign in the 2014 Italian municipal elections. While canvassing by volunteers increased voter turnout, canvassing by political...